Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
An Annals of Internal Medicine survey sheds some light on physicians opinions regarding universal health care. Overall 59% of physicians support national health insurance and 32% oppose it. Support for national health insurance increased 10 percentage points since 2002 (49%). Unsurprisingly, surgical subspecialties, anesthesiologists, and radiologists, were the only specialities where more than half of…
Eric Crampton argues against the paternalistic view some economists have taken in a recent editorial in Health Economics. Here’s an excerpt: “Of course, most economists would disagree vehemently [that taxing unhealthy behaviors is a good thing]. Raising taxes does tend to reduce consumption and, where consumption generates large negative externalities (costs borne by uninvolved parties)…
“‘Libertarian paternalism’, ‘optimal paternalism’ and ‘cautious paternalism’ have been promulgated by prominent economists.” A recent Health Economics editorial by Jody L. Sindelar contradicts the economist conventional wisdom that correcting externalities, providing information and protecting youths are the only role for the government in the health policy arena. I agree with Sindelar that making general economic…
Last Friday I was the keynote speaker for the Pinal County (Arizona) Health Care Delivery System – 2008 Conference. The conference had an interesting mix of speakers (see agenda). Speakers included Lisa Garcia, the Assistant County Manager of Health and Human Services, two academics from the University of Arizona (Gary Hart and Keith Joiner), and…
In Mexico there is a government program named Oportunidades which gives families cash payments if their children go to school, get vaccinated, and have regular health checkups. The program has been a success and similar conditional cash transfers (CCTs) programs are being run in Nicaragua, Brazil and New York City. New York City? Should the…
Many reform advocates have claimed that the federal government should mandate a package of insurance benefits that all private and public health insurers would be legally compelled to provide. Switzerland is one country in which the government defines a what the insurance benefit will be for all standard health insurers. The National Coalition on Health…
If you were offered an actuarially fair lump-sum payment, would you give up half of your Social Security benefits? This is the question asked by Brown, Casey and Mitchell in their 2008 NBER working paper. Overall, about 60% of respondents from the HRS data set preferred the lump-sum payment. The authors find the following individuals…
“In 1988, the first year for which data are available, there were fewer than 14,000 patients waiting for a kidney transplant and about 7,000 deceased-donor kidneys. Today, the waiting list has grown more than fivefold — an increase fueled partly by higher rates of diabetes — but the number of deceased-donor kidneys has only inched…
According to optimal tax theory, taxes should be highest on relatively inelastic activities. For instance, most men work full-time and and the tax rate does not affect this. On the other hand, it has been should that the labor supply of women is much more sensitive to wages and income tax rates. If we follow…
Merrill Goozner has an interesting post (“Unfair and Unbalanced Wonkery on Mandates“) arguing that insurance mandates aren’t good policy (I agree with him on this). For the record: I’m opposed to mandates for two reasons. First and foremost, they’re bad politics. Americans don’t like to be told to do anything. They especially don’t like unfunded…