Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The Century Foundation has a very interesting debate on health care reform (transcript). Below I have cited some of the more interesting points. ERISA. Jacob Hacker, professor of political science at Yale, claims that states attempts at health care reform may be limited by the Employees Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974. According to…
Defining sprawl is difficult. Los Angeles is generally seen to be a leader in sprawl, but in fact Los Angeles is the most densely populated urban area in the U.S; Portland is seen as a model of reducing urban sprawl, but sprawl increased by 25,000 acres in Portland between 1980 and 1990. While population growth…
The future of Social Security is in question. Even Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warns of the rapidly approaching Social Security “fiscal crisis.”. Individuals at the beginning or middle of their prime working years are unsure of how large (or small) their Social Security benefits will be when they retire. An NBER working paper by…
What is do be done regarding the long waits for those needing a donated organ to save their life? As expected, economists recommend market creation as the solution. Freakonomics authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt argue in the New York Times (“Flesh Trade“) that the creation of a market for organs makes sense.…
Every year Transparency International puts out a Corruption Perceptions Index ranking each country’s corruption level. The index is constructed from a survey of various resident and non-resident country experts as well as business leaders (see methodology here). The 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index gives us one clear conclusion: there is a lot of corruption in the…
Medicaid currently accounts for roughly 50% of all nursing home expenditures and 70% of all bed days. The government mandates that nursing homes provide a uniform level of quality to all residents, regardless of the payer type. Yet one may ask: does this mandate hold in reality? Nursing homes may have an incentive to segregate private insurance…
How do you measure the level of corruption in a nation? Transparency International uses a Perceptions Index to rank the corruption of each nation. The problem with this index is that it does not give the true corruption of officials, but the resulting corruption from a mix of personal corruption and the effective enforcement of…
On August 29th, 2006 there will be a book forum discussing The Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling. While I have not yet read this book, I do respect Mr. Kling’s work and am anxious to see him discuss his views in this type of setting. The book made the top 10 list of the…
While advances by physicians and new medical technologies often make for front page news, public health interventions have likely been the major cause of the significant health improvements throughout history. For instance, creating a system of waste disposal and maintaining clean water has greatly increased the expected longevity of urban residents. The 14th century Black…
Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has an interesting paper (“Avian Flu: What should be done“) on the optimal policy to combat avian flu. Below, I cite a few of the more interesting points from his executive summary: Prepare social norms and emergency procedures which would limit or delay the spread of a pandemic. Regular hand…