Two patients lie asleep on operating room tables, each with an inflamed appendix demanding to be relocated to a specimen jar. Two operations take place, each one lasting close to fifty minutes, each one performed by an experienced surgeon at a state-of-the-art U.S. hospital. One operation was priced at $1200 dollars. But the other one…
Listen to this Marketplace report on consolidation in the world of health insurance. It is an interesting report, and also the first public acknowledgment that I am, gulp, a Business Professor!
In 2006, health-care expenditures in the U.S. rose 6%, a rate of growth significantly higher than inflation and one that, if sustained, would lead to a doubling in health-care spending in a mere dozen years. Some of that extra spending was a function of more doctors doing more things to more people—an increasing number of…
“We need to be screwed!” Not altogether surprising words to spill out of a college student’s mouth. But this particular student was not talking about sex. She was discussing the U.S. health-care system–more specifically what she thought it would take for our two political parties to come together to find a … (Read the rest…
See this nice article on high deductible health insurance, by a reporter I spoke to, if I remember correctly, while walking my dog in one of Chapel Hill’s nicest parks.
See a video where I talk to my twelve year old son about health insurance, unrehearsed, and try to see whether he will be able to figure out the importance of the health insurance mandate. I think you will agree that this is an idea even a sixth grader can understand. Which is sad, because most people hold a strong opinion about this topic without grasping even it’s most basic strengths and weaknesses.
Now if the Obama team will work on helping American adults understand the benefits of getting everyone to get insurance!
If you thought donuts were bad for your health, consider donut holes. Specifically, the donut hole sitting smack in the middle of Medicare Part D, the program helping senior citizens pay for their medications. The donut hole is a gap in coverage causing people, once they’ve received a certain level of financial support for their prescriptions, to have to go it alone for a while, bea
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New York City’s plan to prohibit the sale of large, sugary soft drinks is a brave and provocative policy, one that promotes public health at minimal cost to New York City residents.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement last week highlights the kind of tough regulatory action we, as a society, need to make to combat an obesity epidemic that experts say will cause this generation of elementary school children to be the first in centuries to experience a shorter life span than their parents.
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