Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
From a paper by Weinstein and Skinner (NEJM 2010): “Moreover, there is considerable variation in health care expenditures and a weak or even negative association between spending and outcomes, such as mortality at the regional level and quality measures at the state level. This evidence has been interpreted to mean that cutting back on these…
Comparative Effectiveness has been a hot topic in health services research. According to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, “the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorizes the expenditure of $1.1 billion to conduct research comparing ‘clinical outcomes, effectiveness, and appropriateness of items, services, and procedures that are used to…
Cato Institute Senior Fellow Michael Tanner is not a big fan of some health care reforms that are being proposed. He reviews recent health reform proposals in his Obamacare article. I review a few of his arguments below. Employer Mandate. Tanner believes employer mandates are a bad idea and I wholeheartedly agree. Large firms can…
Regarding my post on Monday, Obama’s stimulus package–a.k.a. the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)–includes 1.1 billion dollars for clinical comparative effectiveness research. According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), ARRA “allocates $1.1 billion for comparative clinical effectiveness research, including $300 million for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and $400 million each…