Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
On February 4th, I wrote on the American Medical Association’s (AMA) role in modern medicine. Today I will give further commentary regarding the AMA by reviewing a seminal paper by Reuben Kessel (1958). The paper describing the AMA’s development in the first half of the twentieth century. The AMA has two main goals: 1) a…
During the past few days, I have written extensively on the reasoning behind why society would wish to create a licensing arrangement for some professions. Today, I will review Hayne Leland’s 1979 paper which develops a mathematical model which explicitly describes the welfare implications of licensure. Model Leland uses a Akerlof style set-up where the…
Another example of how physician licensure affects earnings is a paper by Keith Leffler. In the paper, Leffler looks at the different states who accepted and refused to accept the Federal Licensing Exam (FLEX) in the late 1960s. Leffler proposes that if physicians acted as a cartel, only states with lenient state examinations would accept…
What is the purpose for licensing physicians? For the general public, the answer seems obvious: society must prevent individuals from consuming low-quality health care. From the economist’s point of view, this reasoning is not very compelling. If individuals are looking out for their own best interests, it would be illogical for them to consume low-quality medical care…
Most economists believe preferences are monotonic. This means that economic researchers believe the more of something you have (e.g.: money, burritos, cars, friends, etc.) the more well-off you become. This assumption likely holds if we view health as an argument in a person’s utility function; more health generally makes people better off. Putting ‘medical services’…
When traveling from San Diego to Milwaukee for Thanksgiving, my flight was delayed two hours. While this was an inconvenience, it did provide me with the opportunity to finish the book Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. The book espouses a libertarian point of view; this point of view is one which is currently held…
In most markets, quality regulation is not used. If you buy a pair of pants that is lower quality than you had anticipated, you simply will not frequent the store again. If the firm continues to offer low quality pants (at insufficiently low prices), few consumers will patronize the store and the firm will go…
What is the most efficient procedure to immunize large groups of people? This is an interesting question, especially considering the potential need to distribute vast amounts of medicine in the case of a terrorist attack. Since the CDC’s Vaccinations for Children (VFC) program recommended flu shots for that all children age six months and to…
It is often very difficult to determine price data for various medical procedures. With the exception of Medicare or Medicaid data, hospitals often do not publish their prices for each service and even when the prices are provided they rarely correspond to the true prices paid. Published prices often do not take into account different…
There are two treatment options for patients with breast cancer. The first is a breast conserving surgery (BCS) which removes the cancerous lump (lumpectomy) followed by irradiation treatment. The second option is a mastectomy which removes the entire breast. Lecia Apantaku claims in the American Family Physician journal in 2002, that “survival rates following breast conservation…