Let’s face it – us men are disgusting. So public policy experts are left to figure out how to keep us from behaving in our normally disgusting manner. Here’s one approach (thanks to Geoff Riley for bringing it to my attention):
Think it will work?
Shutterstock For a few years, U.S. healthcare spending seemed to be under control, rising no faster than the economy as a whole. The proportion of our GDP spent on healthcare was flatter than a Nebraska cornfield in November. Here’s how much we spent on healthcare, relative to the economy as a whole, between 2009 and…
Imagine that you are gasping for breath, literally on the verge of death. Then someone injects you with a medicine and – miracle! – you are perfectly healthy again. Would you pay $300 for that injection? The treatment is epinephrine; your illness was a life-threatening allergy. And that $300 price? That reflects a six-fold increase…
Rebecca Plevin, from KPCC public radio in California, is quickly becoming one of my favorite health reporters. She is really digging in to the strange world of health economics. Here’s a nice piece she did, comparing how people talk about costs when meeting with financial counselors versus veterinarians versus, of course, going to see their…
Shutterstock Pharmaceutical companies have been charging way too much for way too many of their products. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton complained about drug prices during the election campaign, but neither political party has taken action since November to tackle the problem. Insurance companies aren’t doing much about this problem either, despite having a…
One of the best podcasts out there is NPR’s The Hidden Brain. Here is a recent episode discussing the challenges of being a, yawn, astronaut on a long voyage. It covers some fun research I did with David Comerford. Here is the beginning of the print version. But you might want to check out the audio….