Tag Archives: Healthcare

Education Presidents And Governors: Ain’t Gonna Happen

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In last week’s State of the Union speech, President Obama put great emphasis on expanding early childhood education. He’s not alone in recognizing the vital role of education as the launching pad for 21st century growth. George W. Bush wanted to be known as the “education president,” and so did his father, George H.W. Bush.

While I strongly support these types of effort, right now pro-education politicians are fighting a losing battle. Their new initiatives merely slow down their retreat against a health cost juggernaut. Continue reading →

Who Is Insured or Not Insured by Government?

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One of the many dilemmas surrounding federal health care policies is that the government only partially insures most people when it subsidizes health care, but we want to pretend that once “insured” we are all entitled to the maximum health care available. This puts a lot of weight on the definition of “insurance” and creates misunderstandings about what the government does and does not do. Continue reading →

An Extremely Mucked Up Medicare Debate

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Medicare is taking on a primary role in the presidential race. The discussion often turns to whether the program should continue in its current form, with more direct government controls over costs, or shift its emphasis to vouchers or premium support plans. Let’s try to set the record straight. Continue reading →

Governing After Over-Promising

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For almost anyone following closely our presidential candidates’ statements, it is absolutely clear that each pledges more than he can deliver. As a result, we must vote for the candidate who can better govern after over-promising. Consider especially the big three items driving upward the budget deficits: growth in health costs, growth in retirement costs, and the tax cuts that keep passing our bills and related interest costs onto future generations. One simply can’t balance the long-term budget without dealing with these three. Yet both Obama and Romney remain largely silent about what we might have to give up in these arenas for years to come. Continue reading →

Using Big Data to Solve Autism and Other Mysteries

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Recent newspaper articles have highlighted autism studies that lean toward genetic causes on the one hand and environmental on the other. One notes correlations with the age of fathers and the genetic mutations that we all inherit but that increase with a father’s age. Another suggests that we have a weakened resistance to germs because we aren’t exposed to as many in our cleaner, less outdoor society. Most of us are also familiar with past studies that failed to find evidence for the popular thesis that immunizations given to young children increase the probability of autism.

These autism studies are mere examples of the many types of epidemiological research that try to investigate outbreaks of disease, assess exposure risks, or figure out why certain populations seem to be more or less immune to various health threats. Continue reading →

Will Competition in Health Care Work Without Budget Constraints?

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In a recent column I asked how the health sector might respond to an increased demand for health care if it were subject to normal competitive pressures. I particularly took issue with whether there was a doctor shortage or a broader misallocation of resources and noted that the lack of competition in the health care market is a major reason prices are so high.

Given the comments I received, I need to clarify one point: while I think we will see more competition in the future, it won’t arrive deus ex machina. It can and should accompany real reform that slows the growth of health costs. Continue reading →

A Doctor Shortage or an Uncompetitive Industry?

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In their article “Doctor Shortage Likely to Worsen with Health Law,” Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear report on claims of a future shortfall in the number of doctors. I was thinking about this recently when, for the first time ever, a dermatologist offered to have a nurse perform my checkup. In all likelihood, this nurse did as good a job as the doctor, perhaps even better; she certainly took more time. I’m sure she got paid less, though I’m not sure that costs passed along to the insurance company were any lower.

Is there really a doctor shortage? Or does the Lowrey-Pear article reveal one of the major problems with health care in this country: that if this were any normal industry or market, nurses and other providers would be competing with doctors to fill needs and provide services at a lower cost. Continue reading →

How Much Did the Supreme Court Settle?

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As an economist, perhaps I shouldn’t be writing this piece. In delivering the opinion of the Court on the Accountable Care Act, Chief Justice Roberts makes an indirect attack on economists: “To an economist, perhaps, there is no difference between activity and inactivity…But the distinction would not have been lost on the Framers, who were ‘practical statesmen,’ not metaphysical philosophers” (p.24). Nonetheless, I will turn here not to the practical issues decided by the court—such as how the individual mandate is a penalty, not a tax that must be paid before people can sue, but is a tax, not a mandate, for being held constitutional, while penalties on states that forgo a Medicaid expansion are unconstitutional because they represent a “shift in kind, not merely degree” (p. 5). Instead I turn to metaphysical issues surrounding many quandaries that remain, such as how the new health laws can be administered, how budgets can possibly be sustained, and whether we can solve any of this mess without some bipartisan cooperation. Continue reading →