Insurance Woes
A great cartoon from the Kaiser Health News website that pithily captures the “wonders” of the American health insurance system.
A great cartoon from the Kaiser Health News website that pithily captures the “wonders” of the American health insurance system.
In a recent post, I wrote about ethnic variation in the likelihood of going without health insurance. There’s also quite a bit of geographic variation in uninsurance, based on 2008 data – before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Here is a picture showing the percentage of people in the continental United States who…
In a very influential 2009 New Yorker essay, Atul Gawande described why health care spending is rampant in McAllen, Texas, an example of the regional variations in healthcare utilization that policy experts at Dartmouth have been studying for years. Indeed, this research has shown much higher spending in places like McAllen, compared to cities like Salem,…
So many foods beckoning us from the grocery store shelves – but which ones are healthy for us to consume? We could study Nutritional Facts labels, but that feels as challenging as the math portion of the SAT, with so much numerical information to process. The label tells us how many calories are in the…
We have an epidemic of C-sections in the US, now accounting for almost 1 in 3 births. That represents a 50% increase since the mid-90s, despite all the advances we’ve seen in obstetrical care. Sometimes C-sections are critical to saving the life of either baby or mother. But C-sections are major surgical procedures, with commensurate risks….
Imagine you are a small business owner deciding whether to hire two new employees, your 50th and 51st workers respectively. Would you hire them knowing that, by surpassing the magic number 50, you will now be obligated under Obamacare to pay a penalty unless you offer all your employees affordable healthcare insurance? Imagine you are owner of…
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID) speaks with members of the media at Trump Tower December 12, 2016 in New York. / AFP / KENA BETANCUR (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images) Back in May, an angry constituent asked Congressmen Raul Labrador why he voted for the Republican House Healthcare Bill, that the constituent claimed would…