Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Health Care on Mar 25th, 2013
The walls of our campus rumble and resonate with claims to the moral imperative of health care as a human right. Let’s not take the time today to discuss whether or not this is a “correct” view to hold or is in fact compatible with other views folks hold, rather, let’s play on “their” turf […]
Posted in Environment, Health Care on Mar 11th, 2013
In today’s pile of economic research papers (you know, the stuff that at least tries to use rigorous tools to test theories and provide evidence): Something in the Water: Contaminated Drinking Water and Infant Health by Janet Currie, Joshua S. Graff Zivin, Katherine Meckel, Matthew J. Neidell, Wolfram Schlenker – NBER Working Paper #18876 This paper provides estimates […]
Posted in Health Care, Methodology on Feb 12th, 2013
Here is a New York Times story that is sure to stun you: For decades, mice have been the species of choice in the study of human diseases. But now, researchers report evidence that the mouse model has been totally misleading for at least three major killers — sepsis, burns and trauma. As a result, years […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Government Gone Wild, Health Care on Feb 1st, 2013
Via Tyler Cowen, here is one of the many, many, many emerging stories about the implementation of the PPACA: Labor unions enthusiastically backed the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul when it was up for debate. Now that the law is rolling out, some are turning sour. Union leaders say many of the law’s requirements will drive […]
Posted in Government Gone Wild, Health Care on Jan 23rd, 2013
Back in my early days I spent a lot of time predicting what would happen after Massachusetts passed comprehensive health care reform. It sucks being right sometimes. On the bright side, I no longer live there. He’s right about that: Health care was 23% of the state fisc in 2000, and 25% in 2006, but […]
Posted in Corporatism, Government Gone Wild, Health Care on Jan 23rd, 2013
Remember the debates leading up to the passage of Obamacare? Among the many unicorns sold to us about how ObamaCare would save money was the rapid implementation of “Electronic Medical Records.” This administration, based of course wholly on uncorrupted scientific evidence for everything they do, was heavily influenced by a 2005 RAND study which claimed […]
Posted in Health Care on Dec 5th, 2012
We already knew it was a morass of regulation, but Goodman here makes the excellent point that the private insurers implement much of the government health care “system” today … here is one excerpt: In both cases, the underlying premise is that there is some fundamental difference between public and private health insurance. This is […]
Posted in Health Care, labor markets, Price System, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 22nd, 2012
Our fair college is in a contract dispute with nearly 2000 of its employees (I think mostly at the Medical Center) who are members of the SEIU. From what I can gather the dispute seems to be around the value of health benefits. U of R seems to be wanting to offer the workers “more […]
Posted in Behavior, Health Care on Oct 11th, 2012
Look, if you put a bumper sticker on your car, I understand that to mean that you want other people to read it. If you do this, I suspect that it is well within my bounds to comment on it. So I was following a car two days ago that had this bumper sticker on […]
Posted in Fun Facts, Health Care, Standards of Living on Sep 14th, 2012
Here’s a newsflash for you folks. Almost anything that exists on the Earth can be harmful to you. What would happen to me if, for instance, I decided to consume 350 lemons right now? Or, how about a news story I read recently on the damage to human health and well being caused by … […]