EconTech

The Puzzling Consensus in Favor of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which bans certain types of genetic discrimination by employers and insurers, passed the House by a vote of 414 to one, and the Senate by a vote of 95 to zero. That means it’s a good idea, right? Wrong.
Suppose an [...]

Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with insurance. Well, to be more precise, it would be good to know exactly how much we are paying for how much risk reduction (as individuals). We (sometimes) know how much we are paying, but how many of us know what our risk profiles look like under each [...]

Every economist knows how important prices are. Lots of information can be backed into that one little scalar. Yet, in some areas, they just aren’t available. Certainly, a number of activities in ‘corrupt’ countries will cost a great deal more than their posted price due to tips, bribes, etc. This adds a great deal of [...]

are always worth keeping in mind:
Don’t assume that mandates are cheaper
Remember Milton Friedman’s arguments that a volunteer army is more cost effective than a draft?  That is true even though a volunteer army has a higher budgetary cost.  Paul Krugman today does not deny those arguments, but he elides them.  When it comes to mandates [...]

For anyone who has insurance and has looked at their hospital bill, they will see something like this:

Cost of Procedure: $10,000
Insurance Paid: $4,000
 CoPay: $200

The sane wonder where the hell the other $6k went. Of course, if you have insurance, parts of your medical bills just disappear for reasons I have not yet figured out. If [...]

Before starting, a quick overview of my position and why this pisses me off. Universal coverage is a laudable goal. I have not been convinced that a government-based, single payer system is the best. However, it is clear that the current system has costs that are rising too fast and covering too few people, with [...]

Sorry, being a bit dramatic. However, I have seen a number of statistics along these lines with respect to the likelihood of physicians being reported for improper care. I want to see an analysis of how much of a rise in insurance costs is distributed among physicians along several dimensions (and not just type of [...]

In a blog post (”Sicko Sticko Shock“), Marc Cooper discusses his recent hospital bill for a heart procedure of “moderate complexity.” He finds that the amount billed was $116,749. However, the procedure was much cheaper for Mr. Cooper since he had Blue Cross insurance. “In a column lateral to the “amount billed” [...]
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