Swiss Healthcare System: Part II

In November, I wrote a post about the Swiss healthcare system. Today, I am giving you a bullet-point summary, offering more detail concerning healthcare in Switzerland. Most of this information comes from Frank and Lamiraud’s working paper. In the Swiss healthcare system: there is an insurance mandate for all individuals, the government defines a what…

And you think delays at airports are bad…

The NHS has a target that all patients should be treated within four hours of arriving at the emergency room. This is a laudable goal, but it has lead to some unexpected consequences: patient stacking. According to the Daily Mail, (‘A&E patients left in ambulances…‘), “Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside…

Healthcare cost and quality in 9 European countries

The latest special issue of Health Economics is very interesting.  It looks at healthcare cost and quality metrics across nine European countries using clinical vignettes from the HealthBasket dataset.  The nine countries included in the project were: Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.  The vignettes were used in order to…

Seven Country Health Care Survey

Which country’s citizens believe that their medical system needs a complete overhaul? According to a a study published in Health Affairs (“…Adults’ Health Care Experiences In Seven Countries, 2007“), one third of Americans believe that we need to “rebuild completely” our health care system. Minor Changes Needed Fundamental Changes Needed Rebuild Completely HC Spending per…

Singapore’s Health Care system

Bryan Caplan of EconLog has an interesting blog post on Singapore’s Health Care System. In the post, he reviews Ghesquiere’s “Singapore’s Success,” analyzing Singapore’s health care system. Harford finds that Singapore spends a third of what the U.S. does on health care (as a percentage of GDP) yet has better health indicators. Of course, much…

Swiss Healthcare System

Maggie Mahar has a interesting post discussing the Swiss health care system (“Herzlinger’s Meme on Switzerland and Consumer Driven Medicine“). The Swiss government mandates that all individuals purchase health insurance. While the insurance is subsidized by the government–and more heavily subsidized for poor Swiss individuals–most Swiss pay a large percentage of their insurance premiums. The…

Value-based pricing

In February of 2007, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) recommended reform to Britain’s current Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS). The PPRS sets maximum and minimum profit levels from the sale of branded drugs to the NHS. The PPRS allows companies freedom to set prices as they please on new substances, but restricts subsequent…

Too fat to work

The incapacity benefit system in the UK is intended to provide an income support for those unable to work.  Like any government program, many of the beneficiaries are in dire need of the money and are truly unable to work, but many other individuals who are able–but not inclined–to work have taken advantage of government…

Why are we Obese?

The simple answer for this is that calorie intake is higher than the number of calories burned. But why are people getting fatter? In which countries are people the fattest? This is the questioned tackle in a working paper by Sara Bleich and colleagues “Why is the Developed World Obese?” Obesity is a serious disease:…