Top Health Economics Stories of 2017

What were the top stories at the intersection of health and economics stories in 2017?  Here is the Healthcare Economist’s take. Obamacare repeal. One of the top stories clearly must be the on-going debate around the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare).  Although the ACA was not fully repealed, the most recent Republican…

What happens to CHIP?

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is a federal program that provides matching funds to states in order for them to provide health insurance to children.  The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. Currently, however, the program is in jeopardy.  In fact, federal funding for…

Why fighting disease is hard

Without a doubt, medicine has made tremendous gains over the last decades and even more progress when viewed across centuries.  Often to treat diseases, physicians and researchers identify a single or primary pathway that is causing the disease.  Maybe there is a gene mutation which causes an abnormality.  Maybe there is a bacteria or virus…

The Big Five

UnitedHealthcare, Anthem, Aetna, Cigna and Humana are the five largest health insurers in America. To learn more about them, check out a recent paper by Schoen and Collins (2017) in Health Affairs. The five largest US commercial health insurance companies together enroll 125 million members, or 43 percent of the country’s insured population…In 2016 Medicare and Medicaid…

Friday Links

The cost-effectiveness of CAR-T. Cancer gene testing breakthrough. Uninsured vs. Insured: ER use. Doulas for death. What’s the problem with digital DNA? Plus, please check out the Happy Holiday Health Wonk Review at Workers’ Comp Insider.