Krugman v. Cowen

Can Markets cure healthcare? Krugman: “There are a number of successful health-care systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market.” Cowen:  “There are in fact plenty…

Medical Care for Obese $1400 extra per year

Conventional Wisdom: I can’t believe it!  Obese individuals are causing the collapse of our healthcare system.  According to a report I saw in the AP, obese individuals cost us $1400 more per year in additional medical costs.  Let’s get them on the biggest loser and save our health care system! The question is, does obesity…

Marketplace on Healthcare

This past week, Marketplace has had a great series of posts on health care. These include: Could we solve the healthcare crisis by convincing all hospitals to behave like the Cleveland Clinic? David Goodman of Dartmouth says “If many of these high-cost hospitals started practicing like the Cleveland clinic today, next year they would look…

Oakland’s Creative Revenue Generator

California is known for beautiful beaches, Hollywood, and sublime parks.  In this post, however, I will discuss two other things for which California has recently become famous.   Marijuana.  Here in California, medical marijuana is legal.  Based on my unscientific of pedestrians on a variety of U.S. regions, northern California also has the most lax…

Health Insurance Makes You Fat

In my own research, I have examined the relationship to marriage and weight gain.   A study by Jay Bhattacharya, Kate Bundorf, Noemi Pace and Neeraj Sood found that health insurance may actually increase body mass.  According to the authors: “We find weak evidence that more generous insurance coverage increases body mass index. We find…