What Do People Think About When Choosing Health Insurance Plans?
Here is a discussion I had with Tess Vigeland of Los Angeles Public Radio about the psychology of choosing health plans.
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There is one thing that politicians on both sides of the aisle agree upon: the biggest threat to the future fiscal solvency of the United States is Medicare, the program that pays medical expenses for elderly and disabled Americans. For many years now, the Medicare budget has been growing much faster than the economy as…
If you live in the rural U.S., you probably face relatively limited access to the wonders of American healthcare. There won’t be as many physicians per capita offering you their services. This paucity of healthcare professionals will be especially stark for subspecialty care. There are not many ENT specialists opening up shops in rural…
I have been worried about healthcare costs for a long time, so the fact that we’ve had a few years in which healthcare costs have risen more slowly than normal hasn’t got me overly excited. I’ve seen this happen before, and worry that costs will accelerate again soon. But a recent study suggests that this…
We have an epidemic of C-sections in the US, now accounting for almost 1 in 3 births. That represents a 50% increase since the mid-90s, despite all the advances we’ve seen in obstetrical care. Sometimes C-sections are critical to saving the life of either baby or mother. But C-sections are major surgical procedures, with commensurate risks….
For very good reason, there has been lots of attention on healthcare prices in the United States lately. We spend more on healthcare in this country than anywhere else in the world, and we also charge higher prices for the healthcare we offer. Physicians in the United States make much more than their counterparts elsewhere…
Medicine, today, is supposed to be “patient-centered.” But sometimes the patients feel a little off balance. What can they do when everyone seems to be trying to push aggressive, expensive treatments on them? One solution — or a partial solution — is known as shared decision making, in which patients are given specific tools, such…