Good News: Cancer rates fall

With so much negative news on how ‘our health care system is failing,’ it is nice to see that “failure” may be an overstatement.  According to the USA Today (“Cancer Deaths Drop“), the American Cancer Society reports that cancer rates have fallen for the second straight year. This is great news.  The National Center for…

Cavalcade of Risk #17 is up

The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at David E. Williams’ Health Business Blog. Check out an interesting post at InsureBlog which asks why there are so many uninsured when Medicaid supposedly covers most individuals who earn less than 2 times the poverty line. I also enjoyed the clever idea of Bryan…

Libertarian Paternalism

The latest oxymoron to come across my desk is ‘Libertarian Paternalism.’ Richard Thalar and Cass Sunstein (2003) claim that people often make choices that are not in their best interest. The authors “…emphasize the possibility that in some cases individuals make inferior choices, choices that they would change if they had complete information, unlimited cognitive…

Sight for sore eyes

The Economist magazine (“Pyramid power“) has an interesting article on how to get reading glasses to poor individuals in third world countries. Below are two excerpts: Government health clinics are understandably preoccupied with life-threatening maladies and urban optical shops typically shun simple reading glasses in favour of costly, high-margin prescription glasses. But this neglect takes…

Universal Health Insurance in Wisconsin

Over the past week, I have discussed California’s proposal to extend health insurance to all individuals. Today, I will examine—in my mind—a superior plan developed by former Republican Rep. Curt Gielow. According to a concept paper from the Wisconsin Health Plan website, the reforms will have the following impact: “All eligible Wisconsin residents receive a…

Manpower

For Labor Economists, the Economist magazine has an interesting story (“The world of work“) of the Manpower corporation. Manpower is a global corporation with their headquarters located in my hometown of Milwaukee. If you look at the Fortune 500 list, Manpower can be found at number 136. Below is an excerpt from the beginning of…

Economist Job Market

If you are are working towards a PhD in Economics—like myself—you may be interested in what the job market has in store for you when you graduate. If that is the case, you should check out an excellent article by John Cawley titled ‘A guide (and advice) for economists on the U.S. Junior Academic Job…

“Black Market” Pharmaceuticals

In June of 2005, a pharmaceutical named BiDil used to combat heart failure was approved by the FDA. While this is not a notable event—there are many drugs to treat heart failure—the approval is novel since it was only approved for African-American patients. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the FDA “…approved BiDil for use…

Terminator on Health Care: Part II

Yesterday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled his plan to provide universal health care for all Californians.  Here are some news sites as well as some reactions from around the web. Office of the Governor press release The Current Word Blog by Jim Mathies New York Times and L.A. Times Health Affairs blog (“From Congress to California“)…