Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
A recent paper in the May 2008 edition of the Journal of Health Economics by Carpentera and Stehr finds that mandatory seat belt laws save lives. “…we find consistent evidence that state mandatory seatbelt laws – particularly those permitting primary enforcement – significantly increased seatbelt use among high school age youths by 45–80%, primarily at…
As mentioned in previous posts, most health insurance in the France public health care system involves significant copayments. While this helps to reduce the moral hazard problem, it may prevent poor individuals from utilizing the care they need. In 2000, France introduced free complementary health insurance plan which covers most out-of-pocket payments for the poorest…
Many doctors claim that the medical malpractice system is broken and needs to be fixed. Doctors have high malpractice insurance premiums and often practice defensive medicine to protect themselves against lawsuits. To help alleviate this problem, many politicians have asked for some sort of tort reform. Tort reform can be generally categorized into 4 types…
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…
Throughout its history, Medicaid provided health insurance for the nation’s poor. It did this by reimbursing providers on a fee-for-service basis. In the 1990s, however, California and other states decided to let private insurance companies bid for the right to provide services for Medicaid patients. These HMOs would receive a fixed per patient per month…
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…