WhyTheHeck

Those of you who know your American history might recall the “Great Compromise” that allowed the rural states and the urban states to overcome a major impasse about whether representation should be proportional to population or whether all states should get equal weight.  The result was a bicameral legislature.  (But you knew that.)
Health care reform almost reached [...]

The Office of the Actuary, which makes the official Medicare cost projections,  just announced exactly what was in this blog last week – that there is no chance of overall health care costs falling as a percentage of GDP, and that the more people who are insured, the greater the level of healthcare spending. 
I myself [...]

There are a number of ways to save money in health care without anyone (”anyone” being defined as “anyone who is not a special interest”) feeling a reduction in service or quality. 
 
The first is quite simple.  Believe it or not, when a state Medicaid director puts an expensive new program in place that will ”reduce costs while increasing [...]

Last time I ended my entry by observing that as increasingly effective, painless, and expensive procedures,diagnostics and therapies are introduced, they will be over-consumed.  Why?  There is no economic check-and-balance against this because these resources are virtually free at the point of sale, which brings me to the third observation (counting the the last posting as [...]

This is the first in a series of blogs over the next week to explain why we need to get used to health care expenses continuing to rise, unless we are willing to discuss the R word (rationing). 
If all doctors and hospitals did was the same procedures we did 30 years ago, spending would be [...]

Dying is expensive and inefficient — even as compared to the rest of our healthcare system, which is quite a feat.   One of the tenets of OOBonomics is to reduce “drags” on the economy, of which healthcare – particularly government-financed healthcare – is high on the list.  Medicare spends one-third of its entire budget for [...]

This posting is from someone whom we shall call “Alice” for the simple reason that “Alice” is indeed her name.   It came in via email and Iam not sure whe wants her last name used.
Alice suggests changing the rule where a hospital resuscitates a dying patient who “codes” unless the patient has signed an advance [...]

Be careful before assuming that prevention is the key to lower healthcare costs. Like with most things in life (1) you need to look at the data and (2) as HL Mencken said, “For every problem, no matter how complex, there is a simple and easily understood solution, and it’s almost always wrong.”