How important is credit?

“Adequate credit is to trade what altitude is to aircraft; without it, the odds of coming to grief over preilous commercial terrain are great.  All merchant enterprises sooner or later lose cargoes or encounter soft markets.  Without ample capital reserves and the ability to borrow at low rates of interest, bankruptcy is inevitable.” ~ William…

SimCity: Los Angeles

How would you like to run a major city?  With the economic economic slowdown, would you raise taxes?  If so, on what?  If you would cut spending, what programs would you cut? The City of Los Angeles has a survey that let’s you decide allocate the taxpayers dollars.  More information can be found at the…

Joke for your weekend

A health policy expert named Jim dies and goes to heaven.  God greets the recently deceased and tells Jim that he will answer one question before entering heaven.  Jim asks: “Will we ever have universal health insurance coverage in the United States?” God answers: “Yes, but not in my lifetime.”

Book Review: Free Market Maddess

I was recently read the book Free Market Madness by Peter A. Ubel.  The book may be interesting for those who are unfamiliar with recent work by behavioral economists, but overall I was not overly impressed.  The main thesis is that individuals do not always act rationally (duh) and that the government can do some…

Is Health Care a Right?

NPR’s Fresh Air has an interesting interview with bioethicist Arthur Caplan, a professor from my alma matter the University of Pennsylvania.  One key point was that Dr. Caplan said, to paraphrase, that if we can all agree that health care is a right than it will be easier to move forward with health care reform.…

Healthcare Alphabet Soup

PPO?  COBRA?  HEDIS?  SCHIP?  ESRD?  Are these monsters from a foreign land?  No, there are just one of the many acronyms you’ll find in the healthcare industry. Wikipeida has a nice listing of some of the most frequently used healthcare acronyms that readers may find a useful reference.

Leading causes of Chld Injury Deaths

Accidental injuries kill more than 2,000 children per day worldwide.  The December 22, 2008 edition of Time lists the leading causes of accident-related childhood deaths worldwide: Other unintentional: 31.1% Road-traffic injuries: 22.3% Drowning: 16.8% Fire-related injuries: 9.1% Homicide: 5.8% Self-inflicted injuries: 4.4% Falls: 4.2% Poisoning: 3.9% War: 2.3%