Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Are smart people risk averse? Are dumb people impatient? This is what Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, David Huffman, Uwe Sunde explore in their 2007 Discussion paper. Using data from a choice experiment of 1000 German adults, the authors tested for risk aversion using a Holt & Laury framework, and for impatience by varying the annual…
The Regulating Health Insurance (RHI) blog today named Healthcare Economist as their Blog of the Week for my post on “Doctors, Patients, and the Racial Mortality Gap.” The RHI Health Blog of the Week is awarded to an exceptional health-related post appearing during the previous week. Other RHI Blog of the Week winners can be…
Seat belts save lives. At least conventional wisdom says so. But is this really the case? Seat belts are useful because the reduce the chance that–given that you are in an accident–you will die or sustain a serious injury. But wearing a seat belt may give drivers an incentive to drive more recklessly since the…
Joe Paduda has a great post (“Wasted Dollars“) reviewing a study by Alex Swedlow. The study focuses on waste in the health care sector with a focus on Workers Compensation. Mr. Paduda concludes the following: There’s a lesson here for the non-workers comp world, and policy wonks in particular. It is this – providers overtreat,…
Most public health officials believe that increasing the supply of primary care doctors is almost always a good thing, while increasing the number of specialists can have mixed results. One problem is that physician supply is endogenous. One may believe that physicians prefer to locate in wealthier areas. If wealthier people are also healthier, then…
Electronic medical records (EMR) hold the promise of vastly improving the quality of medical care received in the U.S. today. One of the major issues with EMR is privacy however. Patients generally want their doctors to know as much about their health as possible in order to make the best possible medical diagnoses and treatment…
According to InsideHigherEd.com (“Tomorrow’s Doctors…“) medical students are very altruistic, empathetic people…until the start medical school. The article describes the findings of a study titled “Is There Hardening of the Heart During Medical School?” in March’s Academic Medicine. The longitudinal study finds significant decreases in “vicarious,” or emotionally driven, empathy, during the course of medical…
According to Reuters (“All U.S. kids…“), the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is recommending that all kids should receive an influenza vaccination. Previously, the CDC recommended that all children 0-6 receive a flu shot. Now, all children 18 and under should get the shot. In addition to the direct health benefits the children…
The San Diego Union Tribune has an article (“Cross-border coverage“) profiling entreprenuer Jim Arriola and his low cost health insurance plan covering medical care in both the U.S. and Mexico. His company, Sekure Healthcare, provides a limited-benefit insurance program through employers along with a discount health card program. Both can be used by Sekure members…
Google’s blog gives a preview of its Google Health application. TechCrunch provides some analysis.