Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is available at Merrill Goozner’s GoozNews. I noted in earlier posts (4 June 2007 and 2 Aug 2006) that email and telephone communication between doctors and patients is not compensated. In this week’s edition of the HWR, I learned that this is about to change.
Google is everywhere. CNN reports that Google is venturing into health records biz. “Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that’s likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. The pilot project to…
The NHS has a target that all patients should be treated within four hours of arriving at the emergency room. This is a laudable goal, but it has lead to some unexpected consequences: patient stacking. According to the Daily Mail, (‘A&E patients left in ambulances…‘), “Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside…
The USA Today reports on the development of a shingles vaccine. According to the article, “The vaccine reduced shingles cases by 51% in people given the vaccine vs. those given the placebo. Vaccination reduced the burden of illness, a measure of pain and discomfort, by 61%.” So why aren’t people getting this vaccine? One reason…
Sometimes, a coefficient isn’t what it seems to be. When using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, the regression coefficients indicate the proportion by which the dependent variable changes when the independent variables increases by one unit. Regression coefficients are more difficult to interpret, however, for more complicated regression specifications such as probit, mutlinomial logit,…
There is an interesting pair of blog posts by Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan. Mr. Klein advocates a more centralized health care system while Mr. Sullivan is opposed to expanding the government’s role in health care. Who do you agree with?
Doctors often complain that health insurers are squeezing their profit margins. These insurers offer the physicians access to patients as part of their network in exchange for discounted fees. Physicians can decide not to join the network and charge higher prices, but may be left with fewer patients. The bargaining power of the health insurer…
What is the cost of the last article of clothing you bought. This is easy to determine, just check your credit card statement. Which is cost of health insurance? This answer is more difficult to find. Sure, there is the price of the premium, but different insurance plans have different co-pay/co-insurance levels and different deductible…
Michael Cannon of Cato-at-Liberty cites a study from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that it is difficult for centrally planned medical care to eliminate local norms. “…the centrally budgeted VA system does not display much less geographic variation in spending than is exhibited in the unbudgeted Medicare program . . . . In addition to…
“In 1988, the first year for which data are available, there were fewer than 14,000 patients waiting for a kidney transplant and about 7,000 deceased-donor kidneys. Today, the waiting list has grown more than fivefold — an increase fueled partly by higher rates of diabetes — but the number of deceased-donor kidneys has only inched…