Health insurance is not what it used to be. With increasing frequency, Americans who purchase private health insurance find themselves with plans that require them to fork over significant amounts of money every time they receive healthcare. That means if you get, say, a heart attack, your portion of the hospital bill is probably going to be significant.
(To read the rest of this article, please visit Forbes.)
The Affordable Care Act has done a lot to increase the proportion of Americans with health insurance. I’ve posted a lot of those figures in the past. But here is some data, published by a former student of mine, showing that the law doesn’t seem to be having a huge impact yet on people ages…
Doctors who join up with hospitals or large healthcare organizations in anticipation that this will increase their incomes are misguided or ill informed.
Shutterstock The average life expectancy of American men is almost four years less than men in Switzerland. In fact, among 17 high income countries, U.S. men ranked 17th in life expectancy. American women die young, too, with a life expectancy five years less than the average Japanese woman. Why is American life expectancy so poor? In part,…
Patients often rely on physicians for information about their treatment alternatives. Unfortunately, that information is not always objective. Consider a man with early stage prostate cancer interested in surgical removal of his tumor, but uncertain whether it is better for the surgery to be performed with the help of robotic technology. He asks his surgeon…
Lots of us eat when we are stressed. But did you know that even when we are not currently under stress, the amount of food we eat might be influenced by the stress we experienced as children? That’s the conclusion Sarah Hill, a psychologist at TCU, wants us to draw from several studies she ran…
Recently, I got an incredibly nice email from a complete stranger. It began like this: “I am an Economics teacher in England and have just finished reading your wonderful book ‘Free Market Madness’. When you write a book that only 5 people read, it is nice that at least one person thinks it is wonderful….