Category: Health Care

In his dissent to Edwards v. Aguillard, Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia made a neat distinction, sidestepping the issue of “legislative intent” that he finds so troubling: it is possible to discern the objective “purpose” of a statute (i. e., the public good at which its provisions appear to be directed), (The dissent is obsessed with…

Or: You Just Can’t Make This Shit Up “Health Care Costs Put U.S. at Significant Disadvantage Compared with Global Competitors” I’ll let you read the details, but short story: Whodathunkit? And what do they recommend? Creating greater consumer value in the health care marketplace by using health information technology and empowering consumers with more information…

He really said that. I guess people take their kids to annual checkups because they want to signal their high status to others. This is totally in keeping with Jonathan Haidt’s findings: on measures that “have anything to do with compassion,” libertarians are at the very bottom of the political spectrum. Likewise Tyler Cowen’s paean…

Lane Kenworthy once again gives us one of those graphs that encapsulates a whole global scenario, over four decades: Yeah: we’re #1. Edit: just to note that while we were on the high end of the spending pack until about 1980, we were within the normal range. It’s only since then that things really went…

Yes. And yes. Krugman agrees: Its the Health Care Costs, Stupid – NYTimes.com. The key graphic: For those who don’t click on links that say “Source,” click here: Medicare Versus Private Insurance: The Data – NYTimes.com   Related posts: What’s Wrong with Vouchers? Medicare: Government Does It Right We Should Make Janitors Work Longer Because…

Conservatives love to point out that our employer-based health insurance system is a result of wage controls under FDR. Since employers weren’t able to attract workers with higher wages, they started offering benefits instead — notably health insurance. I recently read Frank Freidel’s biography of FDR, and the whole story became clear. The post-Pearl Harbor…

PAWLENTY: I like Paul Ryan’s plan directionally. I don’t think it’s fully filled out in terms of the fact that we still have to address Social Security and when we issue our plan later in this process, it will have some differences[…] VOLSKY: Do you support the Medicare cuts in his plan that he keeps…

James Kwak explains why Paul Ryan’s notion for vouchers replacing Medicare doesn’t work: If you are forty years old and healthy now, you simply cannot insure yourself against the risk that you will be uninsurably unhealthy when you are sixty-five. You retire, and you lose your health insurance. But you’ll have vouchers, right? You can use them…

Since the rapidly rising cost of health care services is basically the only thing that matters in the whole government budget discussion, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. One frequent assertion is that the limited supply of doctors (because of semi-monopolistic medical-school, licensing, and immigration policies) is a big contributing factor. So when…

Update 10/26/2011: Lane has a great article on upping the EITC here. I’ve long been meaning to post about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which I believe we should expand significantly. Much of my thinking on the subject has its roots in work done by Lane Kenworthy, so it’s not surprising that his latest post…

Health is priceless. Given that, and given the widespread meme that Canadians wait months for crucial, life-saving tests and procedures, you’d expect them to flood into the U.S. in large numbers to buy health care services. Do they? Apparently not. Like really, really not. In fact, an astonishingly small number do. You guessed it: somebody…