Want to buy health insurance for your family? Last year, that would have cost you almost $18,000. In 1999, the cost would have been closer to $6,000. Here’s a table showing the steady rise in prices: Surprised at the $18,000 number? That’s because much of that cost is being picked up by your employer. You…
The importance of sleep is perhaps most realized when we become sick. When we are hospitalized and most in need of every ounce of health, though, hospital care practically guarantees that we won’t get good sleep. Fortunately, two approaches hold promise to improve sleep for patients: one organizational, and the other a common trick of…
It is not unfair that we spend more on medical care for some people than others. After all, some people are sicker than others. If there’s anything unfair, it’s probably the uneven distribution of illness and disability. That said, the disparity in healthcare spending across people is pretty staggering. As this picture shows, courtesy of…
So many foods beckoning us from the grocery store shelves – but which ones are healthy for us to consume? We could study Nutritional Facts labels, but that feels as challenging as the math portion of the SAT, with so much numerical information to process. The label tells us how many calories are in the…
I realize that I do not have the most focused blog in the world. Some people blog about nothing other than, say, capital punishment or new developments in whiskey. I write about psychology, behavioral economics, ethics, the doctor-patient relationship, health policy, political partisanship… a relatively wide range of things, but topics often linked by the…
Recently Mayor Michael Bloomberg learned that his Big Gulp ban had been blocked by a state Supreme Court judge for arbitrarily targeting these consumer goods without a legal rationale. Determined to combat the obesity epidemic, Bloomberg will no doubt appeal this decision. But he shouldn’t. Instead, he should look back at the history of alcohol prohibition…