The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care on Jan 5th, 2012
In one short post Bryan Caplan lays out in 5 minutes what usually takes me an hour to describe to people when they ask, “what do I need to know about the US Health Care system in order to be an informed critic?” It is his obliteration, rightly, of Jonathan Gruber’s missal on government health [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Fun Facts, Health Care on Dec 15th, 2011
In today’s news we learn that American doctors deliver a 24-week old baby that is the size of a soda can. Look up the data on what other countries do at this level. Second, once you adjust for the things that doctors have no control over (the risky behavior and accidents Americans endure), the US [...]
Posted in Education, Health Care, Socialism on Dec 14th, 2011
Michael Moore should be paid more and is exploited. I mean it. He has produced a number of misleadingly anti-capitalist documentaries that have become educational darlings. I cannot get my mind around that these are commonly used “educational” tools in high school much less college. But given that he is so popular and that so [...]
Posted in Health Care on Dec 13th, 2011
I thought one reason to be part of a union was so that you could bargain for more attractive wage and benefit packages than you might be able to on your own? And doesn’t research suggest that the union compensation premium is at least 15% over non-union workers when properly controlling for other factors? Then [...]
Posted in Health Care on Dec 12th, 2011
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Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 29th, 2011
It’s been said many times but bears repeating. Expenditures are not costs. How often have you heard the claim, “health care costs in America are out of control?” I hear it a lot, and it is problematic for at least three reasons. Reason #1: What the heck is health care? The forgoing claim treats “health [...]
Posted in Health Care on Nov 27th, 2011
There’s long been a vigorous debate about whether the rise of suburbia has been a good thing on balance or not. I don’t have a particular horse in this race as I’ve lived in the country, suburbia and the city and have experienced the best and worst of each of them. This short piece on [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Health Care on Nov 26th, 2011
Did you know that food expenditures for an average family in the US are lower today (as a share of income) than at any point in American history? Did you know that clothing and exercise equipment costs are lower today than they have been in the last three decades? Did you know that the (marginal) [...]
Posted in Health Care on Oct 31st, 2011
Megan McArdle points us to the following chart: Let me ask, which is more dangerous – not having a sufficient density of the population vaccinated against infectious diseases that were responsible for life expectancy being below 50 just 100 years ago, or people drinking coffee? When we have nationalized medicine will such situations be allowed [...]
Posted in Health Care, Welfare State, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 31st, 2011
John Goodman with a typically astute observation on the double standard that applies to health policy: Arizona…plans to limit adult Medicaid recipients to 25 days of hospital coverage a year, starting as soon as the end of October. Hawaii plans to cut Medicaid coverage to 10 days a year in April. Other states have already [...]
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