When I lived in Ann Arbor, my children attended a public school where upwards of 15% of kids were not vaccinated for mumps because their left-wing parents didn’t trust the vaccine industry. Meanwhile on the right end of the political spectrum, Tea Party heart throb Michelle Bachman famously accused vaccines of causing… (Read more and…
It was 93 degrees and humid. Jimmy Lawrence put his first five quarters into the vending machine and selected a Coke. The machine refused to give him his beverage. Because the temperature was more than 90 degrees, the computer program within the vending machine had raised the price to $1.50. Is that fair pricing? …(Read…
The gynecologist made several incisions and inserted the laparoscope. With the help of her surgical team of nurses, students and anesthesiologists, she removed the patient’s uterus, which had been bleeding uncontrollably for the past six months despite aggressive medical therapy. The price tag of the procedure? Around $6,000. Meanwhile in a nearby hospital, another gynecologist…
I come from an ardent Republican family. Suspicion of government, you could say, runs in my genes. No surprise then that the first time my parents and siblings heard about Obama’s individual health insurance mandate, they were against it… (Read more and view comments at The Human Capital Blog)
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!
Here is a nice news report about what the Medicaid portion of the Supreme Court decision means for state governments. Short version: North Carolina needs to decide whether to expand Medicaid by up to 500,000 people, with the federal government picking up 95% of the cost. Left unsaid in this news report: hospitals are going to push hard to expand Medicaid, so they will have more paying customers. Wonder if they will have success in states like NC, with Republican legislatures.