Despite Its New Diet, Virginia State Government Is Fatter Than Ever
Visit This Link →
A. Barton Hinkle examines the Virginia state budget and determines that increased Medicaid spending is the big reason that the state government has had to cut the budget in recent years.
Medicaid Takes Up More of State Budgets, Analysis Finds
Visit This Link →
Maybe it’s time to consider reforming Medicare? Before it eats up state budgets completely? And maybe we could do it without demonizing the one party that’s willing to talk about it? (Hello, Congressman Paul Ryan.)
New York Bans Mandatory-Mail-Order Pharmacy Plans
Visit This Link →
Some health plans require you to fill your prescriptions through mail order pharmacies. Some patients don’t like that requirement. In New York State, that requirement will soon be a thing of the past.
Complex Systems, Part II
Visit This Link →
Most people in health policy do not understand complex systems. They really don’t understand social science models either. As a result, when they advocate or enact public policies, they are almost always oblivious to the inevitability of unintended consequences. The idea that a policy based on good intentions could actually make things worse is beyond their comprehension.
Complex Systems, Part I
Visit This Link →
The key take away is that it’s impossible to centrally plan a complex system and that trying to do so is generally counterproductive.
Why Not a Nurse?
Visit This Link →
Virginia Traweek asks why nurses can’t do some of the work that doctors currently do. They’re qualified and they’re willing. It would alleviate some of the shortage of primary care doctors. So, aside from protecting doctors’ paychecks, why shouldn’t we allow nurses to do more?
Ms. Traweek focuses on Texas’s ridiculously restrictive regulations but it’s a …
Autism: Unravelling An Epidemic
Visit This Link →
Two decades into the boom, however, the balance of evidence suggests that it is more a surge in diagnosis than in disease.
How Presidents Died: A 19th Century Perspective on Physician Adoption
Visit This Link →
Over at HISTalk, Doctor Sam Bierstock gives a fascinating (and somewhat disgusting) history of how our presidents died in office.
Over the next two months, Garfield was subjected to repeated probing of the wound with unsterile fingers and instruments, non-aseptic incisions to drain abscesses, and other invasive procedures in an effort to locate the …
It Could Be Old Age, Or It Could Be B12
Visit This Link →
A severe B12 deficiency results in anemia, which can be picked up by an ordinary blood test. But the less dramatic symptoms of a B12 deficiency may include muscle weakness, fatigue, shakiness, unsteady gait, incontinence, low blood pressure, depression and other mood disorders, and cognitive problems like poor memory.
Do We Really Spend More and Get Less?
Visit This Link →
If we ignore the fake prices that typify the American health care experience, it’s clear that the U.S. uses fewer resources to deliver health care than any other developed nation.
The concept of opportunity cost allows us to see that if we don’t trust spending totals in the international accounts, there is another way …