You Ought to Have a Look: Paris Climate Agreement, Clean Power Plan, Canadian Carbon Taxes, and New Science
You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary.
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This week’s collection of not-to-be-missed stories is larger than most—it’s been a busy week!
First up is an examination by Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Marlo Lewis as to whether or not the Paris Climate Agreem...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 3, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick J. Michaels, Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger Source Type: blogs
US Continues to Face Drug Shortages
Once again we are facing national shortage of key drugs, including anesthetics, painkillers, antibiotics, and cancer treatments. We have written several times about previous drug shortages, all resulting in little to no beneficial long-term action.
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists maintains a list of drug shortages, which is currently 150 drugs and therapeutics long. The 150 drugs are at inadequate supply levels for a multitude of reasons, ranging from manufacturing problems to federal safety crackdowns to drug makers abandoning low-profit drugs. While the shortages have long been public knowledge, what ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 15, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
“The photographer @acullenphoto captured this #aerial view...
"The photographer @acullenphoto captured this #aerial view of an oil derricks from a plane flying over the the Bakken oil patch in North Dakota. About 8 years ago, drilling began to transform the remote corners of North Dakota's plains into an economic beacon. But as oil prices have skidded to $30 a barrel, new drilling has dried up, and the flood of wealth and workers is ebbing. It's not a bust — unemployment is still low, at just 2.7% across North Dakota — but the slowdown opens an uncertain new chapter for a state that has spent heavily on new roads, schools, hotels and developments over the past 5 years. Visit the ...
Source: Kidney Notes - February 9, 2016 Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: Joshua Schwimmer Source Type: blogs
At Last: The Data To Routinely Discuss Health Spending By Medical Condition
Discussions of health spending trends are constrained by available data. The National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA), maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), presents spending by type of service or product and source of funds. As a result, their annual release analyzes changes primarily in these terms. The BEA National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) include health sector spending broken out by service/product categories that are similar to those in the NHEA.
Each month, our Center releases a series of health spending reports in which we combine these, and other data sources, to report on...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - February 5, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Charles Roehrig Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Health Care Satellite Account U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Source Type: blogs
The Magical World of ACA Funding
By ANISH KOKA, MD
Congressional leaders just agreed to a budget that would keep the government open through September 2016. I was happy to hear the government was not going to shut down. I was much less happy to hear about the fate of provisions supposed to fund the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The ACA – costing $1.2 trillion over 10 years – was supposed to ‘mostly’ pay for itself. Revenue was to be generated (in large part) by a series of taxes on a variety of different sources. These taxes did not fare so well in the current budget.
‘Cadillac’ Tax
The ACA took aim squarely at high cost...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 17, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Anish Koka Source Type: blogs
Interpreting New Data On Health Care Spending Growth
Health care spending growth is an important issue, especially since health care spending accounted for 17.5 percent of GDP in 2014. Health care spending growth slowed significantly during, and immediately following, the recession years. Between 2009 and 2012, per capita health spending growth hovered around 3.0 percent compared to 5.3 percent in the five years prior.
This slowdown has attracted considerable attention. Cutler and Sahni (2013) note that the slowdown may save as much as $770 billion compared to previous projections, if it persists. An analysis from the Urban Institute projects the associated savings will be $...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - December 2, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Michael Chernew Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Payment Policy long term spending national spending payment models spending trends Source Type: blogs
Moore's Law CPU Power Doubling Rate Slowing
Making computer circuits smaller is essential for making them faster and more powerful. But the size of conducting lines in integrated circuits has gotten so small (14 nanometer in Intel's most advanced wafer fabs) that it is getting much harder to shrink their sizes smaller. Therefore Intel says the rate at which computer power is doubling has slowed to a 2.5 year period. This matters a great deal for the rate of economic growth. Each doubling in computer power enables more uses of computers to boost productivity in more ways. This slow down in the rate of doubling will slow the rate of productivity increases. Eventually ...
Source: FuturePundit - December 1, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Randall Parker Source Type: blogs
Expanded Coverage Appears To Explain Much Of The Recent Increase In Health Job Growth
The rate of health sector hiring started to increase in the middle of 2014, and has continued to accelerate through the first three quarters of 2015. The timing of this acceleration corresponds to the recent expansion of health insurance coverage, but thus far there is little direct evidence of a relationship between expanded coverage and health jobs.
We use state-level data on health jobs and insurance coverage to show that much of the acceleration in health jobs can be explained by expanded coverage. This suggests that as insurance coverage stabilizes, health job growth should revert back to more typical historical level...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - November 20, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Charles Roehrig, Ani Turner and Katherine Hempstead Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Professionals Insurance and Coverage American Community Survey Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics health sector jobs Source Type: blogs
Who Is to Blame for Health Care’s Problems? A Tale of Two Narratives
By JEFF GOLDSMITH
What to do about the seemingly inexorable rise in health spending has been the central health policy challenge for two generations of health economists and policymakers. In 1965, before Medicare and Medicaid, health spending was about 5.8 percent of GDP. In 2013, it was nearly 18 percent. And GDPquadrupled during this same period.
Over the past 30 years, there are been two warring political narratives explaining health spending growth, with two different culprits and indicated remedies. At their cores, these narratives blame the main actors in the health care drama—patients and physicians—for rising ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 28, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Simon Nath Tags: THCB Jeff Goldsmith Source Type: blogs
Moral Failure And Health Costs: Two Simplistic Spending Narratives
What to do about the seemingly inexorable rise in health spending has been the central health policy challenge for two generations of health economists and policymakers. In 1965, before Medicare and Medicaid, health spending was about 5.8 percent of GDP. In 2013, it was nearly 18 percent. And GDP quadrupled during this same period
Over the past 30 years, there are been two warring political narratives explaining health spending growth, with two different culprits and indicated remedies. At their cores, these narratives blame the main actors in the health care drama—patients and physicians—for rising costs.
The...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 27, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Jeff Goldsmith Tags: Costs and Spending Equity and Disparities Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Insurance and Coverage Long-term Services and Supports Medicare Payment Policy Population Health Public Health Affordable Care Act conservative phy Source Type: blogs
The History of U.S. Recessions and Banking Crises
I have never been entirely satisfied with how either economists or historians identify and date past U.S. recessions and banking crises. Economists, as their studies go further back in time, have a tendency to rely on highly unreliable data series that exaggerate the number of recessions and panics, something most strikingly but not exclusively documented in the notable work of Christina Romer (1986b, 1989, 2009). Historians, on the other hand, relying on more anecdotal and less quantitative evidence, tend to exaggerate the duration and severity of recessions. So I have created a revised chronology in the table below. From...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 22, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey Rogers Hummel Source Type: blogs
The Courage to Act in 2008
Ben Bernanke’s memoir is now out and is unapologetically pro-Fed. It is titled The Courage to Act. Here is the cover quote:
The main point of Bernanke’s book is that absent the Fed’s interventions over the past seven years the U.S. economy would have undergone another Great Depression. Thanks to him and his colleagues at the Fed the world is a much better place.
There has already been some push back on this Bernanke triumphalism. George Selgin, for example, notes that the recovery under Bernanke’s watch was anemic. Inflation consistently undershot the Fed’s target and the real recovery was weak. We may not have ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: David Beckworth Source Type: blogs
Trouble Ahead For High Deductible Health Plans?
Benefit plans with high cost-sharing do much more than simply shift costs from employers and health plans. Conventional wisdom suggests that they help lower overall medical expenses by making patients more selective and cost-conscious consumers. However, studies are beginning to ask if high deductibles could actually result in adverse consequences in the long run due to avoidance of necessary care in the short run.
There is not much comprehensive or definitive knowledge about this potential trend yet. This post outlines a few observations based on the current state, and recommends actions that health care leaders can take ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - October 7, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Ifrad Islam Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Insurance and Coverage Long-term Services and Supports Population Health Quality ACA silver plan Emergency Medicine high deductible health plans out of pocket costs Source Type: blogs
Rising Cost Of Drugs: Where Do We Go From Here?
The trends are clear: patients and institutions across the nation are concerned about skyrocketing drug prices. This post offers some information about drug pricing, explores the notion of market intervention, and proposes a series of responses to high pharmaceutical costs.
A few jaw-dropping facts quickly illustrate the pattern of rising drug costs. The average annual cost of cancer drugs increased from roughly $10,000 before 2000 to over $100,000 by 2012, according to a recent study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Several breakthrough specialty medications and orphan drugs recently approved by the Food and Drug Administratio...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 31, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Ifrad Islam Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Medicaid and CHIP Payment Policy Public Health Big Pharma CMS FDA Gilead Sciences hepatitis C Pricewaterhouse Coopers Source Type: blogs
Spending Growth Trends: Keeping An Eye On Spending Per Person
New health spending data for 2014 and spending projections over the next decade from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary were just published in Health Affairs. They show that total growth in health spending picked up in 2014; this was expected given the significant expansion of insurance coverage and the release of expensive new drugs for hepatitis C.¹
But all of the evidence points to continued modest growth in per capita/enrollee spending. This low growth in per enrollee costs is a strong signal that we may be in an era where the “new normal” is more restrained growth in the us...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 28, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Melinda Buntin Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Insurance and Coverage Medicaid and CHIP Medicare Altarum symposium CMS Office of the Actuary Consumers Health IT Melinda Buntin transparency Source Type: blogs
