Why the Free Market Isn’t a Cure-all for Healthcare

It’s comforting to think that most healthcare problems in the U.S. could be solved by letting the power of an unregulated free market do its work.
It’s also wishful thinking and overly simplistic, according to Peter Ubel, MD, a general internist, behavioral scientist, and Duke University public policy professor who blogs for Forbes and The Atlantic.
That’s a sentiment that many of his fellow physicians would dismiss out-of-hand, so don’t let it be said that Ubel shies away from controversy.
In his writing, Ubel has explored whether physicians should pray with their patients. He’s asked whether the primary care shortage is a myth and asserted that physician pay is too high in the United States. He’s theorized that more transparency in healthcare could actually increase prices… (Read more at Medical Economics)

Will Consumers Be Able to Understand Health Exchanges

Now that states have decided what they are going to do about health insurance exchanges—those new shopping carts created by Obamacare to help consumers find health insurance who do not get it through their employers—the really tough part begins.  State and federal governments need to make sure that consumers understand their health insurance choices.
You probably thought that the tough part was behind us.  You see, states had a difficult decision to make about whether to create their own exchanges or, instead, to rely on the federal government to run their exchanges.  About half the states are going to let the federal government run their exchanges, less than half are going to run it themselves, and the remainder are going to partner with the feds.  (See the Kaiser Family Foundation for a nice summary)
This was a tough decision for states, because it pitted ideology against, of all things, ideology!  Imagine, for example, that you are the Republican governor of a state that voted for Romney in the recent presidential election.  You and most of your constituents are not fans of either Obama or Obamacare.  Since Obamacare asks states to create their own health insurance exchanges, you would like to avoid that option… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)

Brain Control and Consumer Behavior

I teach a course on consumer irrationality and market failure at the Fuqua School of Business. I open up one of my lectures with a brief video demonstration of what psychologists call “the McGurk effect.” (See an example here.) In the video, a man makes the sound “ba ba ba.” About half of my students invariably identify the sound accurately. But the other half? They swear on their mothers’ graves that he said “fa fa fa.”
Why such strong disagreement? Because that latter half of my class listened to the videos with their eyes wide open, and their eyes told their ears what to hear. You see, the people who made the video spliced in the sound of the man saying “ba, ba, ba” over a video of him saying “fa fa fa.” Confronted with this inconsistent sensory evidence, these students’ brains tried to come up with a coherent picture of the world. As a result, they mistakenly believed the man was saying something he wasn’t saying… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)
 

Should Little Caesars Be Forced to Tell Consumers How Many Calories Are in a Large Pizza?

As a fan of free markets, I recognize that sometimes intelligent government regulations (not always an oxymoron!) can improve markets by requiring companies to provide consumers with information that will help them make better choices. Informed consumers, after all, are a central ingredient of a successful free market. That’s why even most libertarians support regulations that ban fraudulent advertising… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)

PeterUbel