The Food and Drug Administration is one of the most important government agencies. The FDA has an interesting history and below I will review some important dates.
Where does an aspiring health economist look for journals relevant to the interdisciplinary field of health economics? Which data sets are relevant for the empirical word a health economist would conduct?
If you’re looking for answers to these questions, check out the Resources page of my [...]
Arnold Kling of the EconLog site has some commentary on P4P when discussing Tim Hartford’s latest book (”The Logic of Life“).
I have a very different approach to compensation. I think that the key is to change [...]
This is the question asked to undergraduate economics students a public health students by Atheendar of ‘Dar he Blogs. One third of the economics student said yes, but all the MPH students said no. Atheender [...]
I recently finished reading the fascinating book The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (see also NY Times review). The book describes the authors journey 2002 journal between Herat and Kabul in the middle of winter just after 9-11. Mr. Stewart [...]
Yes, its true. The WTO has adopted a blue toilet seat for its logo. This is not surprising, however: the World Toilet Organization–you didn’t think I was talking about the World Trade Organization, did you?–is dedicated to improving [...]
Looks like the convenience clinic trend is coming to my neck of the woods in Southern California. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune (”Are retail clinics a healthy choice?“) six Minute Clinics are opening in San Diego county [...]
Can a state run petroleum company be as efficient as a private sector company? The answer is a resounding, “yes but…” It is possible that state-run petroleum companies can be efficient as long as they stick to the business of producing oil. Yet Tina Rosenberg’s “The [...]
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at SuperSaver.
[...]Many economists have conducted experiments to analyze the preferences of different populations. In particular, many researchers have attempted to measure the degree of risk aversion or risk loving for a given population. The researcher hopes that his or her subjects are representative of the overall risk aversion composition of the [...]
Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are the “gold standard” for medical studies. Nevertheless, even RCTs have their problems. An NBER working paper by Ludwig, Marcotte and Norberg points highlights some of these issues. The authors examine whether or not anti-depressants reduce suicide rates (they find that anti-depressants do reduce suicide rates).
Unfortunately, [...]
Traditional instrumental variables (IV) econometric methodologies often fail to take into account response heterogeneity. Response heterogeneity based on characteristics not observed by the researcher can create a heterogeneity in the self-selection process. For instance, one group of people who elect to receive surgery may have knowledge of a family history [...]
Here are some tips from Dr. Marissa Weiss on building a good doctor-patient relationship from the patient side. Thanks to Dr. Rich’s Covert Rationing blog for the link.
Which Medicare plan should you choose? Health journalist Charles Ornstein of the L.A. Times was making just this choice for his mother in “Puzzling out plan option for Medicare.” Even for a [...]
When I pay for health insurance, is most of my monthly premium going for medical care? Or does most of the money go towards administrative expenses and insurance company profit?
John Aloysius Cogan Jr. of the Regulating Health Insurance blog finds that [...]
The Anti-Halloween edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at Insure Blog.
[...]Can we estimate risk aversion and prudence using a survey question for the general public? This is what a paper by Eisenhauer and Ventura attempts to do.
Methods
In the 1995 Survey of Italian Households’ Income and Wealth, one question asked:
You are offered the opportunity of acquiring a security permitting you, with [...]
Many people believe that better information technology (IT) can help improve the quality of medical care in the U.S. and around the world. For instance, if a doctor prescribes a drug which interacts harmfully with a drug the patient is already taking, a computer program could notify the doctor of [...]
According to the Telegraph (’Record numbers go abroad for health‘), “More than 70,000 Britons will have treatment abroad this year – a figure that is forecast to [...]
Many studies have revealed patient non-compliance with medical prescriptions (e.g.: not taking prescribed drugs, not visiting the doctor) at around 50%. Most medical researchers believe that non-adherence is either due to 1) irrationality or 2) misinformation. Yet a Health Economics article by Lamiraud and Geoffard (2007) tests the hypothesis of [...]
This is how a very interesting article (”P4P is changing me“) in Medical Economics begins. The essay won an award in the 2006 Doctors’ Writing Contest.
The author of the story is [...]
On the news yesterday that Microsoft purchased a 1.5% stake in Facebook for $240 million, social networking appears to highly valued commodity.
“…[T]he strength of social networks among Mexican-Americans is positively related to access to care.”
Is this true? That is hypothesis [...]
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk has been posted at Hill’s Personal Finance blog.
[...]Revascularization (bypass surgery or angioplasty) have been frequently used procedures to treat patients who have experienced a myocardial infarction (MI). These procedure are expensive, but are supposed to enhance longevity. Do they?
This is the question analyzed by David Cutler in his NBER working paper titled “The Lifetime Benefits of Medical [...]
The Healthcare Economist has expanded to radio. For those in the Pensacola, Florida area, you may have heard my appearance at 1:15pm Central time on Rick Outzen’s “IN Your Head Radio” on 1620 WNRP. During the interview, Rick and I discussed the pros and cons of [...]
As most of you know who have been reading the news, the wildfires in San Diego, my home, have been causing much devastation. According to San Diego’s NPR station KPBS, an “estimated 245,000 acres burned and 1200 homes destroyed in San Diego County” (reported as of 10:09am Pacific [...]
Give a patient a pill and they will feel better. Give the same patient the exact same pill and tell them it was purchased at a wholesale discount, and these same people won’t feel as good.
At least that is what a study by [...]
An amazing collection of data has been performed by van Doorslaer et al. in their 2007 Health Economics paper “Catastrophic Payments for Health Care in Asia.” For 14 Asian countries, the authors categorize all charged services, free services, and income-related fee waivers. Further the [...]
“Un libro abierto es un cerebro que habla; cerrado, un amigo que espera; olvidado, un alma que perdona; destruido, un corazón que llora.”Proverbio Hindú
Nada de lo que el hombre ha sido, es, o será, lo ha sido, lo es ni lo será de una vez para siempre, sino que [...]
I recently finished reading an interesting book titled A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos. Published in 1995, the book employs simplified mathematical and statistical techniques in order to ascertain the validity of many statements published in the press. There are also numerous examples from [...]
This week’s edition of the Health Wonk Review is overflowing with useful information. Can there be too much of a good thing, you ask? Well for those of you who don’t have the time to read every article in this week’s HWR edition, I’ve narrowed [...]
In 2006, the federal government first began expanding Medicare coverage to include prescription drugs using the Medicare Part D program. According to one report, Part D will cost taxpayers $47 billion in 2007.
Yet it is possible that [...]
Many health care policy researchers believe that non-physician clinicians, such as physician assistants, nurse practitioners and midwives can help to reduce cost while maintaining quality. Midwifery has gained in popularity over recent years. Groups such as the American Public Health Association, Public Citizen [...]
The winners of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics are: Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin, and Roger B. Myerson. The trio won the prize for their work on Mechanism Design. See the Nobel Prize press release as well as the Scientific Background paper detailing exactly [...]
Here’s an entertaining cartoon posted on Cristina Favreau’s Savvy Entrepreneur website.
[...]“In its 1999 report To Err is Human, the Institute of Medicine report estimated that as many as ninety-eight thousand Americans are killed each year by medical error. Another ninety thousand to four hundred thousand patients are harmed or killed by the incorrect use of a drug–they [...]
An explanation for the recent General Motors-United Auto Workers deal is pretty simple: it is a transfer of risk. GM will set up a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) which will be controlled by the union. According to the Detroit Free Press (” UAW ratifies”) GM will place about $30 [...]
A recent paper by Franco et al. (2007) claims that increased poverty may improve health (see also NPR’s Marketplace report). How is [...]
“Medicare adopted its [Medicare as a Secondary Payer] MSP policy in 1982, effective January 1, 1983. This legislation states that for individuals working at firms with 20 or more employees, and otherwise eligible for Medicare benefits, Medicare serves as a secondary payer for health care expenses. The employer’s health insurance [...]
“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us into trouble. It’s the things we do know that just ain’t so.”
— Artemus Ward
[...]The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at Robert Laszewski’s Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review.
[...]Their have been much economic research to determine how individuals evaluate risk. Most of this work takes place in a laboratory setting using hypothetical monetary payoffs. Further, the issue of “background risk” is often ignored. For instance, “…mortality risks from alternative occupations tend to be highly correlated with morbidity risks. [...]
The work of three researchers who developed the procedure of gene targeting have won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine. The winners are:
The N.Y. Times has an interested article titled “Exploring Ways to Shorten the Ascent to a Ph.D.” The piece speaks of the difficulty of completing a Ph.D. and wonders whether a PhD should be considered more of a training exercise or a mandate for revolutionary research. An [...]
What has happened to physician assistant (PA) education in recent years? An article by P. Eugene Jones (Academic Medicine 2007) enlightens readers with the latest information.
The states with the most PA programs are: New York (19), Pennsylvania (15) California (10), Texas (8) [...]
Yesterday, Microsoft announced the introduction of the online medical records system titled Health Vault. Online medical records would greatly increase productivity in the health care industry since:
TechDirt has an interesting article (”The Doctr Is In“) about Dr. Jay Parkinson. Dr. Parkinson started a boutique clinic in which patients pay for services out of pocket. Unlike most boutique practices, patients can email or instant message the doctor about any medical questions from [...]
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at the Health Affairs blog.
[...]Do students who attend better schools preform better academically? This is tautologically correct, but not very informative. What would happen if we randomly moved students from low quality schools to high quality schools? Would they do better?
Using the results from Chicago Public Schools randomized lotteries of elementary studies, [...]
In classical economics models, supply and demand curves create a unique market price. Anyone who has shopped around for a good deal, however, knows that there is often significant price dispersion, even for homogeneous goods. For instance, gas prices can often vary greatly within a single neighborhood.
On Monday I attended [...]
There is an interesting article from the Techdirt blog about “How patents skew medical research.” The blog post states “The monopoly power granted by patents pushes all research money into only things that can be patented, ignoring other possible cures, even [...]
Who has a better health care system: Canada or the U.S. Michael Moore would vote for Canada. Libertarians would side with the U.S. A new NBER working paper by June O’Neill and Dave O’Neill concludes that the two systems [...]
The 120th edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance is up at My Retirement Blog. Included in this edition of the carnival is my review of the classic book A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
[...]Local governments provide a variety of services which are highly valued by their residents. From police protection to waste disposal, from snow plowing to utility meter reading, the local government is charged with providing the infrastructure necessary for a smooth functioning economy and a high level quality of life. But [...]
A press release from Senator Ron Wyden sent to me at 7am this morning states the following:
Working to enhance screening and prevention of childhood type 2 diabetes, U.S Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) today announced that an amendment giving states $15 million to combat the disease has [...]
I just finished reading Burton Malkiel’s influential book A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Originally published in 1973, the book was one of the first to advocate for the creation of a “no-load, minimum-management-fee mutual fund that simply buys the hundreds of stocks making up the broad [...]
What are the major differences between medicine and public health? What challenges do public health officials frequently ignore?
On Tuesday, I attended a seminar by Dr. Richard Schieber. Dr. Schieber was a practicing pediatrician, however for the last fifteen years he has worked as a medical epidemiologist for the CDC.
One of [...]
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at Investments and Loans.
[...]Over the years, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has greatly increased the scope of the population for whom it recommends to receive an influenza vaccination. Currently, ACIP recommends that all children 6–59 months old, all health care workers, and [...]
For information on breast cancer symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and recovery options, BreastCancer.org is a great resource. BreastCancer.org is “…a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing the most reliable, complete, and up-to-date information about breast cancer.”
The American Cancer Society also has reliable information on [...]
The Laffer curve is a compelling economic concept. It claims that government revenue as a function of tax rates is shaped as an inverted-U. This means that, at first, raising the tax rate from zero will increase tax rates. However, there is some tax rate which maximizes [...]
Why do the Orthodox Jews have so much political power in Israel? Why are third parties in the U.S. so weak? These phenomenon can be explained by the Banzhof power index. The index is calculated as follows. Let us look at the Israeli election in 2003 for the [...]
A new study by Tai-Seale, McGuire, and Zhang (HSR 2007) analyzes how primary care physicians allocate their time in a typical office visit. The authors use data from 392 videotaped office visits conducted in three settings: 1) a salaried group practice in an academic medical center (AMC), 2) a managed [...]
Much has been written on this site about the growth of convenience clinics (see posts on July 25, April 26, and April 17). The Economist’s Free exchange blog adds to the discussion (”[...]
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is available at Joe Paduda’s Managed Care Matters.
[...]Fentora Deaths
In “The killer drug,” Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters discusses how four deaths caused by the off-label use of Fentora have had Fentora-manufacturer Cephalon in crisis control. Mr. Paduda claims that Cephalon is known for aggressive marketing to physicians [...]
Sean Carroll, a physicist at California Institute of Technology, has some interesting comments regarding how economists use the utility function in a post titled “So what have you been maximizing lately?“ For instance, here are his musings on ‘rational choice’:
If the job of science is to describe [...]
There is an interesting article from Sunday’s N. Y. Times magazine (”…what makes us healthy?“) about the problems in epidemiology of using non-randomized data to draw conclusions. For instance, there is much uncertainty as to whether hormone-replacement-therapy increases, decreases or has [...]
Recently I came across two Washington Monthly articles in their Health Care Issue which are both very interesting.
What is your favorite presidential candidate’s solution to the “health care crisis?” The Kaiser Family Foundation has a great resource on its health08.org website. The site offers links to each candidate’s website where they discuss their health care policy. Unfortunately, there is no analysis of the candidates’ [...]
In a follow-up to my “No hip replacement for you, fatso!” post, the Daily Mail reports that in Britain”Doctors refuse to fix builder’s broken ankle unless he quits smoking.”
John Nuttall, 57, needs surgery to set the ankle which he broke in three [...]
Wal-mart recently released the details of its new health plan for 2008 (see company press release or the Houston Chronicle article). Here are some highlights of the plan.
While a single payer universal health care system will likely increase equality in the U.S., it will also likely lead to gross inefficiencies. For example, see Monday’s USA Today (”Medicaid Drug Rule“). A new rule was enacted which attempts to reduces the amount [...]
How do market forces affect the safety of children in hospitals? A paper by Smith, et al. (HSR 2007) looks at data from Florida, New York and Wisconsin and they see if Medicaid market concentration affects quality of care for children [...]
A new website is available to help patients and physicians find information regarding various diseases. The site is called CureHunter. The site not only has a ton of information on different diseases, therapies, drugs, and bio-agents, but shows the relationship between each of these in a [...]
“GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Novartis AG, two of the world’s biggest vaccine makers, may have bet on the wrong technology in the race to develop a better flu shot.” This is how a recent article (”…Bet Wrong…“) by John Lauerman of [...]
A pair of interesting essays are available at Cato-Unbound.
Robin Hanson argues that the best way to help patients is to cut U.S. medical spending in half. He argues that there has been little evidence that increasing medical spending increases health outcomes. The best evidence comes [...]
Despite much public rhetoric, why is preventative and chronic care so poor in the U.S.? The easy answer is that patients switch plans so frequently that insurance companies who invest in preventative care will incur the cost, but not reap the benefits. The harder question is why patients are switching [...]
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk has been posted at David Williams’ Health Business Blog.
[...]Many papers have attempted to calculate hospital efficiency before and after a policy change. Most research, however, does not take into account quality levels when analyzing these changes in efficiency. For instance, a doctor may increase the number of patients per hour that they visit by 50%, but if this [...]
Kai Ryssdal interviews Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer on Monday’s edition of NPR’s Marketplace. Below are some excerpts from the interview. The full transcript is available here.
Ryssdal: Do you consider Amgen to be part of what is commonly referred [...]
A paper in Health Services Research by Davern et al. (2007) claims that the Current Population Survey (CPS) estimates overstate the true number of people uninsured. The authors claims that the [...]
Most studies have found a strong correlation between a country’s unemployment benefit generosity–in terms of either duration, wage replacement rate, or eligibility–and the unemployment rate. Many economists contend that one reason why Europeans have higher unemployment rates is due to their more generous unemployment benefit package.
Yet a paper in Capitalism [...]
In a blog post (”Sicko Sticko Shock“), Marc Cooper discusses his recent hospital bill for a heart procedure of “moderate complexity.” He finds that the amount billed was $116,749. However, the procedure was much cheaper for Mr. Cooper since he had Blue Cross insurance. “In a [...]
Merrill Goozner has an in-depth analysis of the political process regarding SCHIP. The article talks about how money saved from the repeal of Medicare Advantage program as well as an increase in the cigarette tax will be used to pay for SCHIP. Does repealing Medicare Advantage and renewing SCHIP pit [...]
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal (”…Model For U.S. Health-Care System“) investigated recent reforms in the health care system in the Netherlands.
New System in Town
The new system has the following major characteristics:
The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at The Doctor Is In website.
[...]You walk into your doctors office hoping for a diagnosis to your most recent ailment. The doctor runs some tests and leaves the room telling you he will return. Ten minutes later, the doctor tells you that you have diabetes. What was the doctor doing during the ten minutes? Most [...]
Bob is a British citizen and is 50 years old. He has never been unemployed and has paid thousands of pounds in taxes into the NHS system. Up until now, he has been very healthy and has not had much need for the NHS [...]
From The Economist (”Live fast, die young“):
“Rock stars are famous for excess, and some pay the price. A new study suggests that they are up to three times more likely to die young than the rest of the population, mainly because of drug and alcohol abuse.”
Should hospitals with long waiting times have higher or lower budget transfers? Offering hospitals who have low wait times more money will increase a hospital’s incentives to decrease wait times. On the other hand, thus policy may hurt the busier hospitals and may not alleviate the wait times of those [...]
Why do people, like myself, go through the grueling, boring, masochistic process of obtaining an Economics PhD. Well, according to Paul Kedrosky (”Self help“) getting a PhD can help you discover what you really like to do.
…what I [...]
This is the question posed by a 2007 NBER working paper by Mary Beth Landrum, Kate A. Stewart, David M. Cutler. The authors use data from the National Long Term Care Survey (NLTCS) between 1994 and 1999. The data is panel in nature and has [...]
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at the Health Affairs blog.
[...]Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters reports (”Economy improves…“) that despite a growing economy and a decreasing poverty rate, the number of Americans without health insurance is growing. Approximately 47 million Americans do not have health insurance.
[...]There have been some interesting economics blog postings in recent weeks about the theory of the second best. Dani Rodrik of Harvard argues (”Why do economists disagree“) that economists can generally be viewed as first-best economists and second best economists. For instance, first-best economists would claim [...]
Here are two interesting articles from the blog-o-sphere:
Cat Bonds
The NY Times has an interesting article about catastrophic risk (”In Nature’s Casino“). The article talks about how individuals such as John Seo and Karen Clark have helped to create a market for cat bonds.
The problem with catastrophes [...]
A recent press release from the California Speaks organization shows that California residents want change. Eighty two percent of the 3,500 person conversation help August 11th believed that the health care system [...]
While almost all economists will argue that a single payer health care system is inefficient, many economists support the idea on redistributive ground. Taxing the young and healthy–either directly through taxes or by forcing them to buy non-actuarially fair insurance–and giving the money to pay for the medical care for [...]
