Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
New drugs are (typically) more expensive than old drugs. If a hospital decides to use the latest drug technology, this will increase costs…right? This may not always be the case. If new drugs are more effective than old drugs, then giving patients the new expensive drug may cuts costs in other areas (such as…
The N.Y. Times reports that Social Security benefits will not increase this year. This makes sense on a number of levels. First, over the last year we have been experiencing deflation. The CPI decreased -0.4% between March 2008 and March 2009. Second, wage growth has been negative as well over the past year. Unemployment has…
Watch the relationship between GDP/capita and Life Expectancy evolve over time: Gapminder World.
Obama Budget Cut Visualization. HT: Megan McArdle
Marketplace discusses the uptick in Health IT investment. One reason for the surge is the $19 billion in the Obama stimulus package to encourage doctors to get up to speed using electronic medical records. Will this money be spent effectively? Who knows. I did note last week that 60% of Indian hospitals have HIT compared…
Let’s say that you’re interested in running a Markov model, but are not mathematically savvy. Gijs Hubben has come up with a solution in his Basecase website. The online software allows you to customize the drug costs, medical assessment and procedure costs associated with the disease. If available, you can use other academic models as…
U.S. School Closures, Online Learning Fort Worth closes Schools. Nearly 300 schools close. October 2006: Ohio proposes online learning as a substitute for classroom learning during a flu pandemic. Did these proposals actually get implemented? San Mateo County poses using the website Moodle for online learning during flu pandemics. Marketplace, however, says that the…
El Universal reports that Mexican police have arrested 13 individuals accused of selling surgical masks on the street. Should the government arrest individuals selling surgical masks? Any capitalist would in general support the ability of individuals to trade cash for the goods they desire. However, the case of the surgical mask may be different. Surgical…
Carl Coleman say no. Working during a pandemic is a supererogatory behavior — i.e., acts that are commendable if done voluntarily, but that go beyond what is expected. Coleman argues that “…while health care professionals can legitimately be sanctioned for violating voluntarily-assumed employment or contractual agreements, they should not be compelled to assume life-threatening risks…
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review.