DC ’s Paid Family Leave Bucks the Trend—and Economics
As the Washington DC City Councilprepares to vote on a bill that would provide workers in Washington, DC up to 11 weeks of paid family leave upon the birth of a child, a fundamental question remains unanswered: how much should government intervene in how employers compensate workers?The federal government does so quite a bit at present. By exempting employer-provided health insurance from income taxes, our tax law is responsible for the fact that a majority of Americans get their health insurance from their employer. The exemption is also largely responsible for the fact that so many of these employers have what can only b...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 28, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Ike Brannon Source Type: blogs
Fibrin Glue Market: Asia is expected to witness high growth rates in the next five years, 2021
Fibrin glue is a unique adhesion material used in surgeries for closure of wounds. Fibrin glues are mainly extracted from collective plasma and contain different amounts of purified and virally-inactivated human proteins. Fibrin glue is composed of two components, including fibrinogen and factor XIII. These concentrated ingredients interact with a solution of thrombin and calcium to form coagulum. As the thrombin and fibrinogen/factor XIII solution combine, a clot of a blood protein called fibrin develops in a few seconds, depending on the dilute form of thrombin is used. Some of the characteristics of fibrin glue include ...
Source: Medical Hemostat - November 19, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: hemostatguy at gmail.com (hemostat guy) Source Type: blogs
A Message for Trump: Basel IV Will Kill Dreams of an Infrastructure Boom
Ever since the Financial Crisis, regulators have tightened their grip on banking activities (read: beaten up on banks) without taking note of unintended consequences. Prominent amongst these misguided regulatory interventions have been the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) mandates, which are touted as promoting global financial safety and economic stability. John Dizard of the Financial Times has seen through the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s smoke and mirrors display and correctly concludes that the proposals provide background noise for the next crisis.First, the new “Basel IV” reforms will d...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 11, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
How Far Can Our Empathy Go?
I read this quote today and I had three thoughts almost simultaneously:
“Now, with regard to the people who have done things we call “terrorism,” I’m confident they have been expressing their pain in many different ways for thirty years or more. Instead of our empathically receiving it when they expressed it in much gentler ways — they were trying to tell us how hurt they felt that some of their most sacred needs were not being respected by the way we were trying to meet our economic and military needs — they got progressively more agitated. Finally, they got so agitated that it took horribl...
Source: World of Psychology - November 4, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Kellie Edwards Tags: Family Habits Happiness Mindfulness Parenting Compassion Curiosity Empathy Loving Kindness Marshall Rosenberg Personal Growth regret Rejection Shame Source Type: blogs
The Rest of the Story About the Economic Good News
By PAUL KECKLEY
Legendary radio commentator Paul Harvey ended his daily report with a final story introduced by the tease “Now for the rest of the story.”
Last Tuesday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that median household income increased 5.2% in 2015 to $56,516—the first increase in inflation adjusted income since the start of the downturn in 2007.
The Bureau also noted that the U.S. poverty rate decreased to 13.5% in 2015, down from 14.8% in 2014 and those lacking health insurance coverage shrank to 9.1% from a high of almost 16% in 2007. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, that’s the firs...
Source: The Health Care Blog - September 19, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Paul Keckley Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 5th 2016
This study is a good example of the degree to which the choice to remain active in later life makes a difference. That implies a range of other choices over the decades in order to raise the odds that you can in fact choose to remain active when older, such as avoiding weight gain.
Moderate physical activity is associated with a greater than 50% reduction in cardiovascular death in over-65s. The 12 year study in nearly 2500 adults aged 65 to 74 years found that moderate physical activity reduced the risk of an acute cardiovascular event by more than 30%. High levels of physical activity led to greater risk reducti...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Open Letter to President Obama About His JAMA Paper
KIP SULLIVAN, JD
Dear President Obama,
If I were to tell you that alligators and southern accents are correlated and that alligators cause southern accents, what would you say? You’d say, “Yes, Kip, there is a correlation, but it’s weak. But more importantly, even if the correlation were strong, there is no plausible mechanism by which alligators could influence accents. Therefore I reject your conclusion.”
I offer the same rejoinder to your argument in your August 2 JAMA article that the Affordable Care Act has reduced health care inflation. In that paper, you claimed the ACA has “contributed to a sustained pe...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 24, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
The Economics of Trade: Wilbur Ross Is Mistaken
Billionaire investorWilbur Ross, a supporter of Donald Trump, made the following comment in a letter to theWall Street Journal (Aug 15): “It’s Econ 101 that GDP equals the sum of domestic economic activity plus “net exports,” i.e., exports minus imports. Therefore, when we run massive and chronic trade deficits, it weakens our economy.”In reality, the last sentence –beginning with “Therefore”– doesnot follow from the first.Mr. Ross is alluding to the demand side of National Income Accounts, wherein Y=C+I+G+ (N-X). That is, National Income (Y) equals spending on Consumption (C) plus Investment (I) plus...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 15, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
Mental Health: The Biggest Company Perk
“Working yourself to death?” your friend teases.
In America, this is more than a hackneyed expression. We stifle yawns on our morning commute; we slump into cramped seats on our way home. In between, our mental health hemorrhages. Yes, we are accessories to our mental health crisis.
The average American is overworked, clocking in at 47 per hours per week. In the legal and medical professions, young lawyers and doctors surpass 100 hours per week. Half of salaried employers average 50 or more hours per week.
Striving for the next promotion, raise, and title, stress and mental health issues are ancillary. We mythologize...
Source: World of Psychology - July 31, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Matthew Loeb Tags: Disorders General Health-related Industrial and Workplace Mental Health and Wellness Psychology Success & Achievement Career Goals Employment mental health in workplace Office Morale overwhelm overworked Stigma underpaid Vaca Source Type: blogs
How to Shift from Work Stress to Calm in 3 Seconds Flat
When you’re on the treadmill of workplace stress, it’s hard to exit the cycle of escalation. With deadlines to meet and bad bosses to appease, nothing you do seems good enough. It would be better if you didn’t work in that toxic job, but there’s always the specter of economic uncertainty haunting you, as well as the prospect of a long wait between jobs.
When you’re in a stuck place, the best resource you have is to harness your creativity to come up with a genius exit plan. For that you need a calm, clear mind. Enter the simple and easy three-second breathing technique to go from stressed to calm in three seconds...
Source: World of Psychology - July 27, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Sophie Henshaw, DPsych Tags: Anxiety and Panic Creativity Disorders General Habits Psychology Self-Help Stress brain Breathing Exercise Breathing Technique Chronic Stress Workplace Stress Worry Source Type: blogs
Obamacare Premiums Are Lower Than You Think
Since the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance marketplaces first took effect in 2014, news story after story has focused on premium increases for certain plans, in certain cities, or for certain individuals. Based on preliminary reports, premiums now appear set to rise by a substantial amount in 2017.
What these individual data points miss, however, is that average premiums in the individual market actually dropped significantly upon implementation of the ACA, according to our new analysis, even while consumers got better coverage. In other words, people are getting more for less under the ACA.
Covered Californi...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 21, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Loren Adler and Paul B. Ginsburg Tags: Costs and Spending Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA Marketplaces Covered California Marketplace premiums Source Type: blogs
Economics Will Be Our Ruination
That there title is known as “clickbait.”
But there are challenges in using economics in public policy. Economics is a value-free tool that makes it easy to overlook embedded values.
In a recent story entitled “Pokémon Go is Everything that is Wrong with Late Capitalism,”—talk about clickbait—Vox reporter and Cato alum Timothy B. Lee recounts “some real downsides” to the new mobile gaming phenomenon. In brief, Internet businesses like Nintendo, Amazon, and such are causing a cash drain from most parts of the country to a small number of tech-industry centers. The result is a slow-down in the overall econom...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 20, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Jim Harper Source Type: blogs
Health Expenditure Projections: When Does ‘New’ Become ‘Normal’?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its latest forecast of medical spending for the next decade. The headline number is that medical care as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to increase from its current 17.5 percent of GDP to 20.1 percent by 2025, resuming an upward increase after a several year slowdown.
Forecasting is an inexact science. To make guesses about the future, analysts typically examine the past. The history of medical spending can roughly be described using Fuchs’ law: medical spending increases have exceeded GDP increases by about 2.5 percentage points annua...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 13, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: David Cutler Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Payment Policy ACA ACOs Alternative Payment Models MACRA spending projections Source Type: blogs
The 2016 Medicare Trustees Report: Is Medicare Doomed?
The June 22 release of the annual Medicare Trustees Report has, as usual, elicited conflicting responses. Some have focused on the positive—Medicare spending per enrollee has continued to grow at a historically slow rate—while others have emphasized the negative — the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund is now projected to run out of resources in 2028, two years earlier last year’s projection. Both of these responses are legitimate, and both are incomplete representations of the situation the program faces.
As it enters its second 50 years, Medicare has been successful in assuring the health and econ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 12, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Stuart Guterman Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Long-term Services and Supports Medicare Payment Policy Public Health Aging Long-Term Care MACRA Medicare Advantage Source Type: blogs
Why Are Interest Rates So Low?
Since the financial crisis of 2007-09, and especially in recent months, Europe and the United States have seen zero and even slightly negative short-term nominal interest rates, and sub-zero risk-free real interest rates. In June I participated in a conference on “Zero Interest Rate Policy and Economic Order” at the University of Leipzig, organized by Gunther Schnabl (U Leipzig), Ansgar Belke (U Duisburg-Essen), and Thomas Mayer(Fossback von Storch Research Institute). The topic faced participants with the need to make a key judgment call: Are ultralow rates the new normal, i.e. are they long-run equilibrium rate...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 6, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Lawrence H. White Source Type: blogs
