Tag Archives: marginal revolution

Health Care Costs

Medical Toys

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  •  Zeo is a device that tracks your sleeping patterns (slow wave, REM, duration, etc) and can even wake you up outside of REM sleep, when you’re mostly likely to feel refreshed.
  • Fitbit is a pedometer on steroids that allows you to monitor how active your daily habits are, how many calories you’re burning, and if you toss and turn in your sleep.
  • Similar to the Fitbit, DirectLife is an accessory to a subscription service where you pay monthly for a life-activity coach that helps you look at your data.
  • Withings wifi scale automatically uploads your weight and fat composition so you can access it either through an online web application or via the device’s very own iPhone application.

Full article on new medical toys here. (HT to Marginal Revolution.)

Interesting Links

New York Interns, Robot Workers, and Doctor Shuns ObamaCare Supporters

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New York to employers: Using summer interns who don’t get paid is against the law.

This worker doesn’t need health insurance, isn’t included under the new individual and employer mandates and doesn’t pay taxes either. (HT to Marginal Revolution)

Doctor: If you voted for ObamaCare, seek urological care elsewhere.

Medicaid

Tyler Cowen Misses the Mark

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In a post at the Marginal Revolution blog, Tyler Cowen says that it is plausible that ObamaCare could save an additional 10,000 lives a year by insuring the previously uninsured. But he wonders whether the money might be better spent on a “simple extension of Medicaid, more R&D through the NIH, and some targeted public health expenditures.” The first supposition is without any scholarly basis and the second is far from convincing.

Continue reading Tyler Cowen Misses the Mark →

Medicare

Does Anyone Believe the ObamaCare Cuts in Medicare Spending are Real? Probably Not.

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This is John Cassidy, writing in The New Yorker:

Reductions in Medicare outlays, according to this CBO analysis, would save four hundred and twenty-six billion dollars between 2010 and 2019 compared with current plans. Look a bit more closely, and you find that more than half of the Medicare savings (two hundred and twenty-nine billion dollars) come from cutting payments to providers of services under the regular program; most of the rest (a hundred and seventy billion dollars) come from changing the way payments are set in the Medicare Advantage program. Does anybody really believe that these savings will materialize? For decades now, Congress has been promising to reduce the growth of Medicare outlays, and yet every year they continue to go up.

Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.

Health Care Costs, Science and Other News

Where You Get Your Care Makes a Difference

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Five years after surgery for prostate cancer, for instance, 72 percent of men treated at leading hospitals are alive, compared with 62 percent of those treated elsewhere. Scrutinizing data from specific cancer centers reveals even greater gaps. Five-year survival for stage IV prostate cancer is 71 percent at Fox Chase, for instance, but 38 percent nationally. For stage IV breast cancer, the respective figures are 28 percent and 19 percent—an almost 50 percent edge. For stage IV cervical cancer, five-year survival is 33 percent at the Cleveland Clinic vs. 16 percent nationally.

This is Begley and Interlandi in Newsweek. HT to Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution.

Interesting Links

Hits & Misses #2 – 2009/10/16

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Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is now just 43 years. The reason: Robert Mugabe.

Dartmouth Atlas results challenged: “We see better survival rates at the hospitals that spend more.”

The case for not mandating motorcycle helmets: Every death of a helmetless motorcyclist prevents or delays as many as 0.33 deaths among individuals on organ transplant waiting lists. (Hat tip to Marginal Revolution.)

motorcycle-crash

Science and Other News

Tyler Cowen on Political Extortion

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There is talk of repealing the antitrust exemption enjoyed by the insurance industry. Whether the exemption is a good idea or not, I do not know. The relevant event is that the insurance industry seems to have turned against Obama’s health care reform. Everyone who cares about American democracy and rule of law should be complaining about Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy and their allies in this move. So far I don’t hear the outcry.

Posted at Marginal Revolution.