Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The Health Affairs blog has an interesting article on why Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health care reform plan for California has been shelved. Hat tip to Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters. As General Eric Shinseki, former Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, said “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
Can we think of issues related to violent crime as basically similar to that of a contagious disease? This is the question an article in the N.Y. Times Magazine (“Blocking the Transmission of Violence“) attempts to answer. Violence may spread like an epidemic; murders lead to revenge killings, which lead to more revenge killings. Stopping…
Academic journals are places where medical practitioners can go to view the latest, most cutting-edge, medical technologies. These journals are peer reviewed and are supposed to be places where rigorous, unbiased research is conducted. Some of these articles may not be as unbiased as once thought. NPR’s Marketplace reports (“Drug Companies…“) that drug companies have…
The New York Times reports (“Dental Clinics…“) that the American Dental Association’s branch in Alaska has filed a lawsuit to stop dental therapists from practicing. “The dental associations say they simply want to be sure that patients do not receive substandard care. But some dentists in public health programs contend that dentists in private practice…
Medicare is inefficient and expensive. Medicare has been expanded through Medicare Part D, which covers prescription drugs. Can expanding an inefficient, expensive system be a good thing? Gary Becker argues yes. Since drugs have high fixed research costs but low marginal costs, having the government pay for drugs can increase innovation. In fact, a working…
People who are sick are not able to shop around for medical care. This statement may be true in some cases, but not for the majority of illnesses. Those without insurance are especially sensitive to the price of medical care and are in fact very likely to shop for the combination of the lowest price,…
Michael Cannon reports (“Pennsylvania Proposes to Defraud Non-Pennsylvanians“) that Pennsylvania is manipulating the Medicaid system. Pennsylvania is increasing Medicaid payments to hospitals (thus increasing the amount of federal matching funds) with one hand, but with the other is creating a tax on “profits of general hospitals in two counties, Allegheny [Pittsburgh] and Philadelphia.” Thus, the…
The N.Y. Times (“…No Rhyme or Reason“) has an interesting essay about how doctors financial incentives pressure them to run too many tests on patients and refer them to too many specialists. Doctors are usually reimbursed for whatever they bill. As reimbursement rates have declined in recent years, most doctors have adapted by increasing the…
Megan McArdle has an interesting post (“Putting a price on health care“) about a U.S. single payer system. If a smaller country like Switzerland decided to have a single payer system, this likely would not create too large a distortion regarding prices or innovation. The U.S. would still have a (somewhat) private health care and…
TechCrunch reports on a Facebook application that alerts potential donors to donate blood in times of shortage. Take all Types (TAT) is the name of the innovative non-profit which invented this application. The TAT website wisely states: “There are always shortages of blood throughout the nation, even though there are plenty of potential donors out…