Economics Behaving Badly
George Loewenstein and I have an Op-Ed in the New York Times today. Check it out, and feel free to add your comments.
George Loewenstein and I have an Op-Ed in the New York Times today. Check it out, and feel free to add your comments.
The National Health Service in the United Kingdom has recently disseminated a wonderful graphic, helping people understand how likely they are to die from scary things, like war and airplane accidents, versus less terrifying but deadlier hazards, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol: In behavioral economics, we talk about something called the “availability…
If you have been paying attention to US healthcare policy debates lately, you know that hospitals have a price problem. Walk across the street from one hospital to a competitor hospital, and you could easily find yourself facing a $30,000 increase in your medical bills. At one extreme for instance recent information shows that replacing your hip…
Interesting picture on the Vox website from Sarah Kliff, showing an increase in the number of health insurance companies planning to compete on the exchanges next year: So much for the rumors that Obamacare will quickly kill the health insurance industry. (Click here to view comments)
Sepsis is a brutal killer. It often starts after a microorganism gets loose in your bloodstream, spreading to organs far and wide, releasing deadly toxins along the way. In response, your body releases toxins of its own, chemicals designed to kill the invading organism but that, all too often, damage your body, too, leaving you…
Here’s what most medical experts agree on: People 50 and older should be screened for colon cancer. Here’s what is more controversial: Whether that screening should start, routinely, at age 45. Recently, the American Cancer Society (ACS) recommended that colon cancer screenings start at age 45. Their recommendation was based in large part on an uptick…
Once again, lots of reports in the news about crazy variation in hospital prices in the United States, with thousands or tens of thousands of dollars difference in the price of services from one hospital to its neighbor across the street. Marketplace did a nice report on this issue recently, including an interview with yours…