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Category Archive for 'Health Care'

This post is not intended to be an all-encompassing discussion of the problem of kidney shortages, and the main arguments for an against, rather it is a lightly edited illustration of the conversations we have after I teach lectures on the “efficiency” of the current kidney allocation system. Indeed, we end up having one to […]

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Friday Fun Fact: Where does the United States rank in the world in terms of public health dollars as a share of GDP? That is, think of Medicare, Medicaid, the VA and related medical expenses and how large a share of GDP do they comprise? We rank (ignoring the tiny little countries like the Maldives […]

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Given the rise in PPACA premiums, do we get to rename the program? On a slightly more serious note, recall the vitriol spewed (ex post of course) at “economists” who for some reason were not able to predict the Great Recession. I had quipped why/whether political scientists are not, now, being excoriated for what is […]

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I suspect that what is being taught in enlightened public health classes is that things like expensive and high hospital and health insurance administrator salaries are the reason that health costs are so high. Now, there is actually a body of research on this question, done by capable health care economists, and some of those […]

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The Origin of AIDS

Jacques Pepin’s Origin of AIDS is certainly a learning experience. While for many readers there is too much detail to make it worth plowing through, I really recommend it to anyone who appreciates the deep connections between social science, medical science, and human development. I won’t again comment on this book, just merely highlight a few interesting […]

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Follow the goods, not the money. Follow the goods, not the money. So, it is widely agreed that health outcomes in the U.S. are not better than in other countries, though if you adjust for various behaviors and risk exposures those differences go away. For argument’s sake, just assume the U.S. gets no better outcomes […]

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Here is a very nice interview with Nobel Laureate Ken Arrow. Note that despite his famous position on the impossibility of having a true free-market in health care, he does not in any way demagogue the issue. Indeed, his humility is refreshing. Here is one clip: The truth is it’s very easy to rail against […]

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More Cowbell

In another dog bites man finding: Detecting Potential Overbilling in Medicare Reimbursement via Hours Worked by Hanming Fang, Qing Gong Medicare overbilling refers to the phenomenon that providers report more and/or higher-intensity service codes than actually delivered to receive higher Medicare reimbursement.  We propose a novel and easy-to-implement approach to detect potential overbilling based on the hours worked implied by […]

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New study finds homeopathy is effective in treating … zero … of 68 illnesses. A review of 157 studies found that homeopathic treatments were no better than a placebo. Now, before you get all righteous on folks, placebo effects are not all that bad. And lord knows, we could use a lot more placebo and […]

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Surprising Sentence(s)

From this new paper: Lastly, having long-term care insurance has no independent effect on the probability of ending up on Medicaid   Perhaps this one is not surprising to regular readers, but certainly would be to laypersons: Thus, contrary to the predictions of various efficiency wage models of employee behavior (including gift-exchange, reciprocity, and reduced […]

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