Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Conventional wisdom holds that the U.S. has become more and more partisan and the views of both Democrats and Republicans have become less moderate over time. Is that the case with respect to views on health policy? A paper in JAMA last week by Blendon et al. (2021) conducted probability-based national surveys on four topics…
Improvement in survival (a.k.a. efficiacy) clearly are important, but what other factors matter? According to a systematic literature review by MacLeod, Harris and Mahal (2016), these factors include: patients favour funding for cancer medicines that improve health outcomes demonstrated by ‘clinical efficacy’ [Oh et al.], ‘prolonged survival’ [Goldman et al., Seabury et al. Lakdawalla et al.] and/or…
How does President Obama propose to change the budget in the coming year? Here are his key proposals. $500m for mental health. The budget includes $500 million in new mandatory funding to for individuals with serious mental illness. The funding would be used to support”…additional states in the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic demonstration; increases access to…
For years, Republicans have campaigned to repeal Obamacare. The biggest question in their campaign is what to replace it with. One year ago, Republicans unveiled the Patient Choice, Affordability, Responsibility, and Empowerment Act (Patient CARE). Now, the Republicans have a new plan. What’s in the new plan? The Healthcare Economist reviews the highlights. No…
In a series of papers, Coile, Milligan and Wise look at Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. In the sixth installment of the series, the authors look specifically at disability programs. Although stereotypically one would believe that most people exit the workforce due to choice and rely on Social Security, job pensions, and…
Time Magazine on the economic boom currently happening in Washington, DC: “Yet the diversity of the Washington economy is an illusion, for each of its business sectors is to some degree a creature of the region’s single great industry—the federal government. According to a 2007 report by the Tax Foundation, for every dollar in taxes…
The most recent Federal Budget leaves much to be desired. There are spending cuts. The Economist reports that although Mr Obama’s team projects that his budget will cause the deficit will fall “…from a post-war record 11% of GDP in the current fiscal year to 3.1% by 2021. That would stabilise the debt, albeit at…
Most physicians, public health officials and economists believe that most individuals do not receive sufficient levels of preventive care. Only half of American adults receive all recommended screening and preventive care. The Partnership for Prevention has a plan to increase preventive care utilization. The organization proposes introducing: “..federally funded insurance programs [that] would provide highly…
“Peter Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office, estimates that 5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product-—$700 billion per year –goes to tests and procedures that do not actually improve health outcomes…The unreasonably high cost of health care in the United States is a deeply entrenched problem that must be attacked at its root.” This…
Medicare was implemented in 1965 to cover the medical costs of the oldest members in society. In 1965, the U.S. life expectancy was only 70 years old. Now, however, life expectancy at birth is over 78 years. Medicare is now not just covering the oldest of the old, it also covers the “moderately” old since…