CoR #192
In this week’s Cavalcade of Risk, Nancy Germond of Insurance Writer hosts this week’s romp through the wilds of risk, a maze of medical conditions, and a not-so-*fowl* post on chickens.
Month: September 2013
The Rational Addict
The New York Times has an interesting profile of Dr. Carl Hart and his research into the neurology of rational addition. Dr. Hart recruited addicts by advertising in The Village Voice, offering them a chance to make $950 while smoking crack made from pharmaceutical-grade cocaine…To participate, they had to live in a hospital ward for…
Beta Binomial Regression
Oftentimes, one will observe data cluster around two different points. This distribution is known as a bimodal distribution. A bimodal distribution could arise, for instance, when patients have two choices of health care providers, and the data measure the share of times patients use one of the providers. To model the effect of different covariates on variable…
Medicare: Expert vs. Public Opinion
A great article from NEJM summarizes the differences on the problems Medicare faces as seen by experts and the public. This press release summarizes the results. One reason that many Americans believe Medicare does not contribute to the deficit is that the majority thinks Medicare recipients pay or have prepaid the cost of their health…
U.S. Measles Outbreak?
According to the CDC, this year is on track to be the worst for measles in more than a decade. CNN reports that: There were 159 cases of measles in the United States from January 1 through August 24, according to the CDC. If that trend continues, there will be more cases in 2013 than…
HWR is up
Tinker Ready has posted Health Wonk Review: Data, medicine, insurance reform and a round up of health policy blogs at Boston Health News.
California Hospitals Charge Fair Prices to the Uninsured
Why is that? Because in 2006 California passed the Hospital Fair Pricing Act. Melnick and Fonkych (2013) describe the bill as follows. The Hospital Fair Pricing Act…mandated that hospitals develop formal, written financial assistance policies and limit the prices they charge uninsured patients with low to moderate incomes…Under the law, hospitals must limit the amounts they collect from…
Geographic variation in Medicare and Medicaid spending
In some research I conducted with the Institute of Medicine, we found that there is little relationship between the geographic variation in Medicare and Medicaid spending. Research by Todd Gilmer and Rick Kronick of UC-San Diego conduct their own research using Medicaid data from 2001-2005. Like my own research, they find that a state’s per…
Cancer screening rates
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) publishes screeening rates for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers over the past 25 years. I have reproduced the charts below. I wonder how the USPSTF recommendation in November 2009 that women ages 40 to 49 should not undergo screening unless they are in a high-risk group will affect mammography rates in the most recent…
U.S. Health Care vs. The World
The GW School of Public Health put together an interesting summarizing how the U.S. compares to selected countries on population, GDP, health care spending, life expectancy, and various other metrics. Check it out. Brought to you by: The George Washington University’s Online Masters in Public Health