Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
“This can no longer be a profession of craftsmen individually brewing plans for whatever patient comes through the door. We have to be more like engineers building a mechanism whose parts actually fit together, whose workings are ever more finely tuned and tweaked for ever better performance in providing aid and comfort to human beings.”…
“We are not cutting Medicare benefits. We are trying to eliminate waste.” Vice President Joe Biden, 25 February 2010. “Our country’s too big, too complicated, too decentralized for Washington, a few of us here, just to write a few rules about remaking seventeen percent of the economy all at once.” Senator Lamar Alexander, 25 February 2010.…
“Gross misperception, especially in the minds of noneconomists, often prompts the claim that ‘the market’ (or ‘capitalism’) either works or does not work without constraints, a claim that is demonstrably unsupportable, either in analytical logic or in empirical reality.” James M. Buchanan, Nobel prize winning economist
In an article in the Atlantic, James Fallows ponders if America is in decline and if so, is there anything we can do about it. One of the more revealing commentaries on America’s prospects comes from an American businessman living in China: “We scream about our problems but as long as we have the immigrants,…
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design.” F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit.
“Despite the spectacular failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, some economists insist that Fannie and Freddie need to be kept in place but somehow, just made safer. This optimistic advocacy—which assumes that Fannie and Freddie are like airplanes that need better landing gear—is in spite of the fact that between 1992 and 2008 Fannie…
“…individuals who carry the [Huntington Disease] genetic mutation are up to 5 times as likely as the general population to own long-term care insurance…relatively limited increases in genetic information may threaten the viability of private long-term care insurance.” Oster et al. (2009) “Genetic Adverse Selection: Evidence from Long-Term Care Insurance and Huntington Disease” NBER Working…
“A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.” Daniel Webster
“A lot of people think government action saved capitalism. It didn’t. Capitalism saved capitalism. A lot of people think the government didn’t have any plans with regard to Lehman Brothers. It did. The plans just didn’t work.” Tom Junod “The Deal of the Century” Esquire.
“The whole notion that the music industry has been operating under for the last 10, 15 years is that every download represents a lost sale. You know, what has radio been except for a free download? People want to hear the music first before they invest in it. If it’s good, they’re going to want…