The Economist has a nice story about how the cost of sequencing DNA (specifically of the DNA of homo sapiens) is decreasing at a rather rapid rate. They include a chart (which naturally has lots of blue in it). The only problem with this chart is that it doesn’t really tell us much other than [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Healthcare Markets'
Nice discussion of the “Knowledge Problem”
April 5th, 2010 · Comments Off · Economics, Healthcare Markets
Energy economist (and blogger) Michael Giberson does a nice job describing the nuances of Hayek’s Knowledge problem, in a short amount of space, and within the context of health care. Hayek says that the issue isn’t one of planning vs. not planning, but rather a question of who does the planning: “whether planning is to [...]
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Health pricing, once more
August 12th, 2009 · Comments Off · Healthcare Markets
Some of you, who have been faithful lo these years, remember that I used to spend some time talking about the lack of price transparency in health care as being one of the main drivers of expensive health care. The Times has this excellent article on the matter: Survey Finds High Fees Common in Medical [...]
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Health care needs a better experience
June 8th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Healthcare Markets, Usability
Forrester’s annual index of customer experience, the CxPi (can we invest in this?), has “revealed” something that many of us probably knew intuitively … or perhaps knew from plain experience. The customer experience offered by health care companies is particularly poor compared to other industries. From a summary of the report at the Experience Matters [...]
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Definitions in the health care debate
May 8th, 2009 · Comments Off · Healthcare Markets, Market Definitions
Economix at the NYTimes has a nice post about how definitions mean something … and then proceeds to define some important terms in the health care debate: Socialized Medicine; and Socialized Health Insurance. As blog author Uwe Reinhardt points out, people often confuse them, especially, it seems, when they’re on the campaign trail. And, interestingly [...]
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Ouch! Red pins hurt! (And sometimes contain no useful information)
April 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Fun, Healthcare Markets, Information Design, Prediction Markets
Navigate to the latest prediction market, a “health market” this time, from the Iowa Electronic Market, and one see this: Ouch! Oh, wait. The text lamely explains the graphic. “Each marker represents a location containing current or former health market participants.” Phew. Well, I’m happy to hear that. But now, what the hell can I [...]
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China, India, and who owns the next century
April 20th, 2009 · Comments Off · Healthcare Markets
The latest Economist has some nice coverage regarding the state of health care in both China and India (as well as an excellent report on Healthcare IT). Upon reading both articles I was again struck by skepticism of the claim that the 21st century is China’s century. China, at least in terms of healthcare, resembles [...]
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Echo chamber: health populi on the importance of best practice for physicians
February 28th, 2009 · Comments Off · Healthcare Markets
My favorite health care economist / blogger, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, has published a nice followup to a recently published report on regional variation in health care costs in the NEJM. Her “hot points” are often spot on, and this post is no exception. I quote: Physicians determine the bulk of hospital and prescription drug spending: thus, [...]
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Transparency in billing statements
January 29th, 2009 · Comments Off · Healthcare Markets, Information Design
Siegel+Gale, a branding and “simplicity” firm, has conducted a study that maps out which billing statements consumers think are the most complex. (I’ll withhold any snide comments about the research being the result of consultants keeping themselves busy while on the beach). The results are: Credit card statements, the least offensive in this survey, does [...]
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U.S Healthcare Efficiency (or, the benefits of going paperless) Index
December 18th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Healthcare Markets
It’s good to know that people monitor such things — in this case, the amount of money the healthcare industry could save by going paperless. I might suggest some improvements to their dashboard, but the idea is spot on. ~alex
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