Yellen's Balance Sheet Baloney
Of the many questions reporters asked Janet Yellen on Wednesday, at her press conference following theFOMC ’s decision to raise the Fed ’s policy rates, my favorite was the very first, posed by theFinancial Times’ U.S. Economics Editor, Sam Fleming.Here is Mr. Fleming ’s question:[You ’ve stated that the Fed wants to delay*] balance sheet normalization until [interest rate*] normalization is well under way. Could you give us some sense about “what well under way” means, at least in your mind — what kind of hurdles are you setting, what kind of economic conditions would yo u like to see, is it a matter of t...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 17, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: George Selgin Source Type: blogs
Misconceptions in Raj Chetty ’s “Fading American Dream”
Raj Chetty, the head of Stanford ’s “Equality of Opportunity” project, recently released a paper called“The Fading American Dream” co-authored with another economist, a sociologist, and three grad students. It claims that “rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90% for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s.” [Though the study ends with 2014, when most of those “born in the 1980s” were not yet 30.]The title alone was sure to attract media excitement, particularly because the new study thanksNew York Times columnist David Leonhardt “for posing the question that led...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 2, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
Monetarism With Chinese Characteristics
Monetarism is often misunderstood, overlooked, forgotten, or even derided. Yet its basic logic, resting on the quantity theory of money, is evident and remains important in a world of pure fiat monies.Most major central banks have abandoned monetary targeting in favor of setting interest rates to achieve long-run price stability and full employment. China is an exception. Since 1998, thePeople ’s Bank of China (PBC) has used money growth targets to guide monetary policy aimed at maintaining stable nominal income growth and preventing excess inflation (see Figure 1).Figure 1: PBC Monetary Framework[1]That said, the PBC ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 2, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: James A. Dorn Source Type: blogs
Health Affairs Web First: Health Spending Growth Projections, 2016 –25
New estimates released today from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) project an average rate of national health spending growth of 5.6 percent for 2016–25, outpacing average projected growth in gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.2 percentage points. As a result, the health share of the economy is projected to climb to 19.9 percent by 2025—up from 17.8 percent in 2015. These projections are constructed using a current-law framework and do not assume potential legislative changes over the projection period.
Growth in national health spending is expected to be driven by projec...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 16, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Health Affairs Tags: Elsewhere@ Health Affairs Web First Source Type: blogs
A Cross-Section of Recent Work in the Aging Research Community
A recently published report from last year's Biomedical Innovation for Healthy Longevity conference, held in Russia, serves as a sampling of ongoing work in the field of aging research; a wide range of views on theories of aging are represented. One thing that strikes me from a review of the topics is that few of the people involved are working on anything related to rejuvenation, or, setting aside the much-needed consideration of biomarkers of biological age, any other projects with near term practical applications likely to significantly extend life. For the most part this is a field concerned with investigation, develop...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 7, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
Positioning for the Future
As you may have heard, the United States has a new president. From where I sit, things do not bode well for me — that is to say my patients — over the next few years. In addition to the virtual certainty of massive changes in health insurance, I fear a significant overall economic downturn similar to the last time a Republican held office. Until the outgoing president managed to turn around the Great Recession, my income tanked. In fact, it’s only now beginning to come back to where it was seven years ago. Talk about nipping it in the bud!
As I say, though, this is more about my patients than about me per...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - January 24, 2017 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
Oregon ’s High-Risk, High-Reward Gamble On Medicaid Expansion
Health policy in Oregon is like football in the Southeastern Conference: not only a contact sport but also a source of intense civic pride. In the early 1990s, under the leadership of its physician Governor John Kitzhaber, Oregon created a “first in the nation” state-run managed care plan for Medicaid, the Oregon Health Plan, expanding its covered population by nearly 50 percent. He funded the expansion in part by a controversial priority system for redesigning the benefit package, and instituted population-based payments to health insurers.
The Oregon Health Plan succeeded in mainstreaming Medicaid patients into priva...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 10, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Jeff Goldsmith and Bruce Henderson Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Policy Lab Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy coordinated care organization John Kitzhaber Oregon Oregon Health Plan Section 1115 Waivers Source Type: blogs
Here ’ s What Won ’ t Happen in 2017 (And What Will)
By PAUL KECKLEY
In the political drama surrounding the new administration, healthcare is certain to take center stage as the 115th Congress convenes tomorrow and Donald Trump is sworn in as our 45th President and Chief Executive January 20. As it turns out, healthcare was a major issue in Campaign 2016, especially with Clinton-Sanders followers who wished expansion of coverage and a vocal minority of GOP voters who liked the promise of Repeal and Replace. Now it’s time to govern.
For the new Congress and administration, governing healthcare will play out against a testy backdrop: it will not be easy.
The Nation is...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 2, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Are Longevity Assurance Therapies only for the Wealthy?
The Life Extension Advocacy Foundation is in the process of reworking their online presence and adding a lot more content. One of the new items is this discussion of the likely trajectory of cost for near future therapies that slow aging or produce rejuvenation, such as the panoply of SENS therapies presently under development. There is a tendency for people to assume, without giving it much thought, that rejuvenation therapies will always be enormously expensive and thus restricted to the wealthy, but this is basically nonsense. Once proven and packaged as a product, the projected types of therapy will be mass manufacture...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 19, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Obama Administration Lays Out Its Case For ACA ’s Success
President-elect Trump has characterized the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as a disaster and has promised to repeal it. He has partners in the Republican House and Senate, which are also pledged to repeal the ACA, although probably with some kind of a transition period. They are supported by conservative and libertarian commentators who join in characterizing the ACA as a failure.
On December 13, 2016 the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) issued a lengthy brief emphatically rejecting this characterization. The report was accompanied by a chart book and blog post summarizing the report. The Department o...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Council of Economic Advisors hospital-acquired condition open enrollment Source Type: blogs
National Health Spending: A Return To The ‘ Old Normal? ’
The year 2015 may be the year that we said goodbye to what some have called the “new normal” of health care spending. It’s becoming ever more clear that the unexpected and remarkably consistent slowdown in health care spending that began in the early 2000s is over. According to updated data from the economists and statisticians at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2015’s health spending hit $3.2 trillion, growing at 5.8 percent from 2014. That edges us ever closer to the growth rate just before the Great Recession, when health spending grew around 6.5 percent.
But as we return to the “old normal”...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 14, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Yevgeniy Feyman Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA CMS national health spending Source Type: blogs
The Costs And Benefits Of Health Spending In 2015
On December 2, Anne Martin and the actuarial team at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released their estimates of national health spending for 2015. The headline news was that health expenditure growth has increased relative to prior years, and that the health care share of gross domestic product (GDP) hit a high of 17.8 percent in 2015. The annual estimates tell us a lot about growth in spending, sources of funding, and broad categories of use. They don’t, however, tell us much about the level and allocation of benefits from additional spending. Another way to consider the growth in national health e...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 13, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Sherry Glied Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA CMS national health spending Source Type: blogs
Building A System That Works: The Future Of Health Care
Conclusion
These changes—smarter payments based on outcomes, improved care, and data that can be used by doctors and patients—are transforming health care in America.
Although this Administration will conclude in the next month, I have no doubt that the transformation of our health care system is larger than any one Administration or any one President. Rather, it is a transformation guided by the work of actors at all levels and across the country. The Affordable Care Act may have been an important catalyst, but the changes it set in motion are permanent. And were well overdue. Any attempts to reverse or legisl...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 12, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Sylvia Mathews Burwell Tags: Featured Following the ACA Health Professionals Hospitals Organization and Delivery Payment Policy Quality ACOs Bundled Payments MACRA Source Type: blogs
Why the Affordable Part Didn ’ t Work
By PAUL KECKLEY
On March 23, 2010, Congress passed the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”. It soon became known as the “Affordable Care Act aka ACA” before being labeled “Obamacare”.
Its aims were two: to reduce costs and cover everyone. In the 79 months since passage, it remains arguably the most divisive public policy platform since FDR’s New Deal in the ‘30s and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 60s. Per Kaiser Family Foundation’s Tracking polls since its passage, the public’s view about the ACA remains split: half think it’s an overreach by the federal government that has resulted ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized ACA Source Type: blogs
OECD Economic Research Finds That Government Spending Harms Growth
At the risk of understatement, I ’mnot a fan of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Perhaps reflecting the mindset of the European governments that dominate its membership,the Paris-based international bureaucracy has morphed intoa cheerleader for statist policies.All of which was just fine from the perspective of the Obama Administration, whichdoubtlessly appreciated the OECD ’s partisan work topromote class warfare andpimp for wasteful Keynesian spending.What is particularly irksome to me is the way the OECD often uses dishonest methodology to advance the cause of big government:Deceptively man...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 29, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Daniel J. Mitchell Source Type: blogs
