Cavalcade of Risk #153: March Madness Edition

In March tens of millions of Americans engage in risky behavior; 60 million people fill out NCAA tournament brackets and over $12 billion are wagered on the NCAA tournament each year.

This year, two of my hometown teams (Wisconsin and Marquette) have made it to the Sweet 16 and with one more win they will reach the Elite 8.

In this week’s Cavalcade of Risk, the Healthcare Economist present another Elite 8, the eight best risk-related posts on the web.  So without further ado…

Cavalcade of Risk Eilte 8

1. Colorado Health Insurance Insider reviews a new study that predicts a large increase over the next decade in the number of Medicaid patients using the ER, due not only due to the fact that Medicaid patients tend to be in worse health than people with private health insurance, but also that they have more barriers preventing them from seeing a primary care physician.
2. Are university labs a safe place for students and workers? Julie Ferguson of Workers’ Comp Insider looks at this issue in a recent post about the death of a lab worker at UCLA and related criminal charges against a professor and the Board of Regents.
3. Is the demise of the health insurance industry imminent? The Covert Rationing Blog investigates.
4. How can you reduce your risk of prostate cancer?  InsureBlog reviews findings from a recent study in the journal Cancer.
5. In this post, amateur economist Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog concludes that we’re practically “tithing” on health care costs and suggests that is helping drive the U.S. outlier status when it comes to comparative per capital health care costs.
6. Chatsworth Moneyblog explores the reasons for a surprising lack of forecast stress-related income protection insurance claims arising from the recent series of earthquakes to hit Christchurch, in New Zealand. Is it a triumph of the human spirit or clever policy wording?
7. Why is the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) promoting a fictional investment company?  Boomer and Echo investigate.
8. The Healthcare Economist describes the development of early medical cooperatives by citing an excerpt from one of the best books on health care ever written.