Weekend Links

Recent articles

• Health Wonk Review: In the Here and Now Edition

  September 2, 2010 in Carnivals

  The latest edition of the Health Wonk Review is up at Hank Stern’s always interesting InsureBlog.

• Are All Readmissions Bad Readmissions?

  September 1, 2010 in Hospitals

  Currently, Medicare and private insurers are attempting to put in place incentives to reduce the number of readmissions. Visits to the hospital are costly and reducing the frequency of hospital visits is the best means to reduce medical costs. In particular, if readmissions are the fault of the care the patients receive during [...]

• Tuesday Links

  August 31, 2010 in Current Events

  California Workers Comp: Parts I and II.
  Decriminalizing drugs in the Czech Republic.
  Bad news for Alzheimer’s Treatment
  The solution to obesity: school playgrounds?
  An interview with a nurse practitioner.
  Homo economicus in Paris.

• Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables

  August 31, 2010 in Econometrics

  Oftentimes, people use the following rule of thumb: if the dependent variable is continuous, use OLS; if binary use a logit or probit.  But what should you do if your dependent variable is fraction between 0 and 1.  To use a logit or probit one would have to unnecessarily transform the dependent variable into binary [...]

• Detailing the Provisions of the Health Reform Law

  August 29, 2010 in Health Reform

  Stephen Zuckerman has a nice summary of the key provisions in the Health Reform law (i.e., PPACA).  There are six broad changes: i) the creation of health insurance exchanges, ii) an excise tax on high-cost health plans, iii) creating the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), iv) Medicare policy changes v) additional emphasis on prevention and [...]