Here is a great graphic from the Center for Science in the Public Interest laying out how supermarkets lay out food to encourage impulse purchases:
So much for “free” markets!
Shutterstock Cancer screening can save lives: Mammographies reduce the chance women will die of breast cancer; and colonoscopies reduce the chance people will die of colon cancer. But should my 93-year-old father receive a screening colonoscopy? The test is uncomfortable, carries risks, and costs money. Even more importantly, my dad probably won’t live long enough…
“DOCTOR FILES: When the Unknown Is Not So Bad” – Los Angeles Times
It used to be that hospitals billed Medicare for the services they provided, and Medicare – I know this is crazy! – simply paid the bills. Those days are rapidly receding into history. Soon, a significant chunk of hospital revenue will be at risk, under a series of Medicare pay-for-performance programs. The idea behind P4P…
Shutterstock Recently I posted a piece, describing research out of Johns Hopkins, showing that when patients come to ERs – either with no insurance or insurance that is out-of-network – they often face charges that are four, six, or even ten-fold greater than what Medicare would pay for the same services. After the post, I was inundated…
A recent article in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, my former hometown newspaper, made the kind of statement that is all too common in popular reporting on behavioral economics: “The idea that we humans are not that smart comes from behavioral economics.” Really? Behavioral economics discovered stupidity? Irrationality? The limits of human intelligence? That is…
“Rationing By Any Other Name” – The New England Journal of Medicine