Category: Healthcare

I ran across this post at Jacobin called “Socialize Big Pharma.” The basic argument is simple. We need more antibiotic drugs, and pharmaceutical companies aren’t trying to produce them. Therefore we need to eliminate the private pharmaceutical sector altogether, putting a socialized system in its place. I found the post odd for a number of… Continue reading Socialize Big Pharma Research

New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: The second theory is that Medicaid is uniquely inferior among health insurance plans, and that is what causes it to be ineffectual. The right-wing has been pursuing this theory for a while, claiming that the low reimbursement rates in Medicaid basically make it inoperative as insurance because providers do… Continue reading Policy Shop: The Oregon Medicaid Success

So Mary Fallin has this thing she does where she forgets that she is governing a state, and pretends instead that she is a national political actor whose job should primarily consist of taking symbolic potshots at federal government programs that the Republican party dislikes. It is not totally clear why she does this: sometimes… Continue reading The Impact of Fallin’s Medicaid Decision

Healthcare costs in the US are really high relative to other countries. In 2008, the US spent over $7,500 per person on health care, nearly twice the amount of a group of similar OECD countries. As a result, the US spends 16% of its GDP on healthcare, more than 5 points higher than any other… Continue reading Ridiculously high doctor compensation levels in the US

The Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate today. As such, I thought I would break my hiatus briefly. One of the talking points among detractors of the health care law was that it constituted a government takeover of healthcare. That is understandably a form of political rhetoric aimed at firing up a base, but it… Continue reading Government’s already existing hand in US health insurance