Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Ten days ago, MedPageToday ran an article (“Hefty Bank Account…“) which claimed that people who have more money are healthier. Using the 2000 Census American Community Survey, the study finds that “a 55-year-old man making about $49,500 per year is 44% more likely to have a functional disability than his neighbor making $57,800 a year.” This…
The New York Times last week wrote an article (“…off the charts…“) examining the use of invasive treatment for cardiac problems in Elyria, Ohio. The article says that this small city has angioplasty rates which are significantly higher than any other U.S. city. “…outside experts say such a locally dominant cardiology group could make it…
From the ArgMax website (“Your Congress at Work“), we see that the pocket lobby may have Congess in its pocket: “A spokesman for Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., confirmed Inglis voted for the Oman deal after being assured by House Majority Leader Boehner that the House would take up the CAFTA fixes. The language would implement…
Greg Mankiw’s Blog looks to online betting for the odds that McCain, Clinton, Giuliani, and Edwards will will the 2008 Presidential Election in his POTUS 2008 post. McCain has the edge, but Hilary Clinton is a close second. Using Bayes rule, however, Mankiw shows that if Edwards were to be the Democratic nominee, he would…
Why is publicly provided health care so expensive? One reason is the the fraud which is bound to occur. The New York Times reports (“Hospital Grew…“) that New Jersey’s largest health care provider–St. Barnabas Health Care System–bilked $630 million from the federal government between 1995 to 2003. Medicare pays extra cash to hospitals for the…
By 2050, almost 1/3 of the Japanese population will be composed of individuals over the age of 65. While this will certainly affect Japanese old-age pension schemes, it will also lead to large increases in the Japanese government’s outlay’s for health and long-term care costs. Fukui and Iwamoto (2006) estimate the size of this increase in…
As a teacher’s assistant at UCSD, I often see undergraduate students selecting courses based on how easy the professor grades rather than on the amount of knowledge they will be able to glean from the course. Why is this? Arnold Kling gives a four main reasons in his “College Customers v. Suppliers” post on the…
The adverse selection death spiral has reared its ugly head again. PacAdvantage, an insurance pooling company for 6000 small and medium sized businesses in California has closed its doors. The Sacramento Business Journal reports (“Backer pulls plug on PacAdvantage health purchasing pool“) that the three remaining insurers underwriting the plan have pulled out. Michael Holt of The…
Healthcare Economist. Why not Health Care Economist? Or Health-care Economist? Which one is correct? The Chicago Manual of Style webpage offers a discussion of the issue. The site claims that ‘health care’ is the correct spelling according to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition. One individual, however, writes to the website saying: “I find in my American…
Many papers on health insurance worry about the problem of adverse selection. Critics of HMOs claim that the fact that HMOs have lower costs is not due to more efficient provision of services nor the limitation of the provision of services, but instead largely caused by the fact that the people who choose to enroll…