Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
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…
David Whelan chronicles the rise (and possibly future fall) of Medicare Advantage programs in his article “Unfilled Prescription” in Forbes. Earlier laws privatizing Medicare, starting with a pilot program in 1985, were written to give insurance companies only 95% of the money otherwise spent per Medicare member. The insurers were supposed to figure out how…
Paul Polak’s book Out of Poverty could have just as easily been titled “How to get rich: a guide for small-time farmers in developing countries” or “Marketing to dollar-a-day earners.” Polak’s book states that donations –especially those run through the developing country government–will not end poverty. They have not so far. One reason is that…
Wikio has their own ranking system of the top health blogs. The Healthcare Economist blog was ranked as #46 as of today.
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review has been posted at The Health Care Blog by Brian Klepper.
Gruber (1994) shows that the costs of employer-provided health insurance benefits are passed on to employees through lower wages. But do employees with higher expected medical expenses have their wages reduced by a higher amount to reflect the additional medical costs to employers? This may not be the case if employers can not observe the…
According to the U.S. News and World Report UC San Diego was ranked as the tenth best economics department in the U.S.
KBPS reports that Google will begin digitizing tens of thousands of library books at my current school, UC San Diego (UCSD). Why was UCSD chosen? Google states that UCSD has an “exceptional collection of social sciences and east asian books.” Within six months, all UCSD books will be available online.
Most economics simplify markets and assume that there is one market price. In reality, however, we observe significant price dispersion. Because of this, we see that that searching for the lowest price–while costly–can buyers to superior outcomes. George Stigler (1961) is a seminal paper on the Economics of Information which I will review here. When…