Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
A number of studies have suggested that we are spending too much on end of life care. Consider this Kwok et al. (2011) study published in Lancet. Many elderly people in the USA undergo surgery in the year before their death. The rate at which they undergo surgery varies substantially with age and region and…
Medicare provides health insurance for 58.4 million Americans. To provide health care to largely elderly Americans, it spent $710 billion in 2017. One key question is, does the federal government have the funds to continue to support this program as the baby boomers retire? According to the 2018 Medicare Trustees report, the answer is increasingly…
Conservatives may be surprised to ehar that one of the best ways to strengthen monogamous marriage is more equally distributed income…One standard conservative argument against antipoverty policies is their cost: taxes burden the affluent and, by reducing their incentive to work, lower overall economic output. But if one goal of the policy is to bolster…
A nice summary of the policy changes scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
How is President Trump planning to keep his campaign promise to improve health care for Veterans? One pathways is through his VA Mission Act of 2018. As the Washington Post reports, this bill would include $55 billion in additional funding for veterans. A key part of this legislation is that it allows for more veterans…
In broad strokes, the American Patients First plan aims to lower list prices, lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs while maintaining incentives for innovation. In short, this is a sensible strategy, although there are some concerns about how more restrictive formulary designs could restrict consumer choice. American Patients First in brief To maintain manufacturers incentives to innovate,…
One idea is to provide additional funding for both formal and informal caregiving services. For instance, one could subsidize nursing homes or home health agencies on the formal side; for informal caregiving, one could give stipends to individuals to care for their elderly parents. The question is, does this implementation actually work? This is the…
The answer is ‘yes’ according to a report by the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) titled Reforming Biopharmaceutical Pricing at Home and Abroad. Innovations such as new drugs often reduce the price of health even when the new drug is very expensive relative to other goods. Consider the example of a patient diagnosed with HIV…
What did you think of the State of the Union address? I won’t get into all the policies and positions put forth by President Trump, but I will review his statements related to health care. And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress…
Aaron Carroll argues ‘no’ and–in most but not all cases–I agree with him. Here is the evidence he cites: More health insurance does not reduce emergency department (ED) visits. States that expanded Medicaid eligibility with ACA funding saw an increase in ED visits relative to non-expansion states. In Oregon, individuals who won an eligibility ‘lottery’ to…