Visualizzazione post con etichetta #hanson sanità medicina. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta #hanson sanità medicina. Mostra tutti i post

venerdì 6 marzo 2020

COMPRA LA SALUTE, NON LE MEDICINE.

COMPRA LA SALUTE, NON LE MEDICINE.

Chi è nella miglior posizione per redigere il codice della strada?
Chi ci assicura contro gli incidenti.
Chi è nella miglior posizione per dettare regole sanitarie?
Chi assicura la nostra salute.
OVERCOMINGBIAS.COM
As I’ve pitched vouchers as a general solution to both law and medicine, the looming coronavirus pandemic offers a good and challenging concrete…

giovedì 11 luglio 2019

COMPRA LA SALUTE, NON L’ASSISTENZA SANITARIA

Urca, è già quasi mezzogiorno e devo ancora riformare la sanità. E meglio che mi sbrighi visto che nel pomeriggio mi tocca riformare la giustizia.

Dunque, punto numero uno della riforma è battezzarla come si deve. Userò questo slogan: COMPRA LA SALUTE, NON L’ASSISTENZA SANITARIA

Protocollo:

1) Prendi il costo medio sanitario per paziente a tutt’oggi.

2) Trasformalo in voucher da rendere disponibile per chi lo desidera.

3) Imponi a chi ritira il voucher di comprare un’assicurazione sanitaria.

4) Imponi all’assicuratore di vendere sempre abbinata alla prima anche un’assicurazione sulla vita/invalidità/infortuni.

martedì 25 settembre 2018

Buy Health, Not Health Care robin hanson

Buy Health, Not Health Care
robin hanson
Citation (APA): hanson, r. (2018). Buy Health, Not Health Care [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 2
Buy Health, Not Health Care By robin hanson
Nota - Posizione 3
Tttttttttttttttt
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 7
Make sure that when you lose, they lose,
Nota - Posizione 7
RAPPORTO COL MEDICO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 7
Buy lots of life and disability insurance from your care-givers,
Nota - Posizione 7
RIMEDIO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 8
U.S. per-capita spending
Nota - Posizione 8
IL PROBLEMA
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 10
relying less on insurance and employers as middlemen.
Nota - Posizione 11
IL RIMEDIO...VIA I MEDIATORI
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 11
What we want is health,
Nota - Posizione 12
VOGLIAMO UNA COSA...
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 12
what we buy is health care,
Nota - Posizione 12
...E NE COMPRIAMO UN ALTRA
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 14
when we reward our advisers just for giving advice,
Nota - Posizione 14
INCONVENIENTE...ZERO INCENTIVI
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 15
are they satisfied to give costly mediocre advice
Nota - Posizione 15
SPESSO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 16
"agency" problem.
Nota - Posizione 17
IL NOME DEL PROBLEMA
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 20
incentive to invest now to prevent future symptoms,
Nota - Posizione 20
PREVENZIONE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 21
published track records could help people choose their health advisers.
Nota - Posizione 22
UNO STRUMENTO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 23
give our health advisers a strong and direct financial interest in our having a long and healthy life.
Nota - Posizione 24
LA SOLUZIONE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 27
How to Buy Health
Nota - Posizione 27
Tttttttttttttttt
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 29
a single organization now handles both my health care and my life insurance.
Nota - Posizione 29
PROPOSTA
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 29
Life Maintenance Organization (LMO)
Nota - Posizione 30
NOME
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 31
The higher my chance of dying, the more it will cost them on average to pay off on the life insurance.
Nota - Posizione 32
IL MECCANISMO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 34
To increase my chance of remaining able-bodied, and not just alive, I should buy disability insurance.
Nota - Posizione 34
IN PIÙ
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 37
As critics have suggested, this may result in more preventive care, more attention to lifestyle, less reliance on doctors for routine work,
Nota - Posizione 38
ESITO POSSIBILE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 39
even though my life may be worth $ 10 million to me, most of the (huge) insurance premium to pay for this insurance would be wasted
Nota - Posizione 40
PRIMO PROB...NN SONO IO AD ANCASSARE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 41
The other problem is moral hazard -- heavy insurance may reduce my incentive to keep myself healthy...
Nota - Posizione 42
SECONDO PROBLEMA....ACCORDI COL MEDICO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 44
How to Buy Health, and Pay Less
Nota - Posizione 44
Ttttttttttt
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 44
I could join or contract with a "medical defense club" (MDC) to buy life insurance on me from the LMO. The MDC would pay the insurance premiums and it would be the beneficiary should I die. I would pay the MDC a copayment for their trouble, a payment which should be little more than the cost of the
Nota - Posizione 45
POSSIBILE SOLUZIONE DELL'AZZARDO MORALE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 48
If I could trust the MDC not to try to kill me or make side deals with the LMO,
Nota - Posizione 48
IL NUOVO PROBLEMA
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 51
cryptographic anonymity might ensure they do not know who exactly I am.
Nota - Posizione 51
POSSIBILE SOLUZIONE
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 59
LMOs would declare their estimate of my chance of death, an estimate backed up by statistics
Nota - Posizione 59
PRIMO CONTRATTO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 61
Various MDCs would then bid (preferably to my cryptographic pseudoname) on the copayment they would each require, given this LMO, insurance amount, premium, and estimated probability of death. I would then pick one with a low price that I trusted to stay honest.
Nota - Posizione 62
SECONDO CONTRATTO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 64
What would happen if I had different values for dying or becoming disabled at different future dates, or for dying in different ways?
Nota - Posizione 65
PROBLEMA AFFRONTATO
Evidenzia ( giallo) - Posizione 79
Getting There from Here
Nota - Posizione 79
Nttttttt

giovedì 15 settembre 2016

La medicina uccide

Il web è pieno di medici che si divertono a giocare allo “scienziato” occupandosi di questioni marginali come l’inefficacia delle terapie alternative (che ben pochi adottano). Mai nessuno di loro che denunci la questione centrale: la medicina ufficiale (quella utilizzata da tutti) uccide. No, non parlo di quegli episodi di “malasanità” con i quali fanno festa ogni tanto i giornali, parlo del fatto che la sanità presa nel suo complesso nuoce alla nostra salute producendo più morti che guarigioni.
In “Cut Medicine an Half” Robin Hanson è attratto dal mancato collegamento tra spesa sanitaria e salute.
Per il profano è una verità straordinaria, per l’esperto una verità nota. Tuttavia, nessuno dei due – sia l’ignorante che il sapiente – ha il coraggio di pronunciarla in modo chiaro e netto. E’ a questo che serve Robin Hanson, per riferire verità imbarazzanti quanto consolidate.
Per mettere in chiaro lo spreco di risorse sottostante Hanson propone una limpida analogia:
Car inspections and repairs take a small fraction of our total spending on cars, gas, roads, and parking. But imagine that we were so terrified of accidents due to faulty cars that we spent most of our automotive budget having our cars inspected and adjusted every week by Ph.D. car experts. Obsessed by the fear of not finding a defect that might cause an accident, imagine we made sure inspections were heavily regulated and subsidized by government… Then let me speak plainly: our main problem in health policy is a huge overemphasis on medicine… But health policy experts know that we see at best only weak aggregate relations between health and medicine, in contrast to apparently strong aggregate relations between health and many other factors, such as exercise, diet, sleep, smoking, pollution, climate, and social status
Il mito e la verità sulle sorti della nostra salute:
Children are told that medicine is the reason we live longer than our ancestors, and our media tell us constantly of promising medical advances… In contrast, few doctors know that historians think medicine has played at best a minor role in our increased lifespans over the centuries. And only a few health policy experts now know about the dozens of studies of the aggregate health effects of medicine. Worse, these studies can seem muddled, with some showing positive, some showing negative, and some showing neutral effects of medicine on health…
Insomma, il punto di partenza – per quanto disturbante – non è un’eresia sostenuta da un tipo originale ma l’ortodossia ammessa (a denti stretti) da tutti gli esperti:
In the aggregate, variations in medical spending usually show no statistically significant medical effect on health…
Precisiamo cosa intendere per “variazione” e “aggregato”, chi è spiazzato da questa verità spesso fatica a cogliere i concetti di fondo:
By “variations” I mean the large changes in medical spending often induced by observable disturbances, such as changing culture or prices, and by “aggregate” I mean studies of the health effect on an entire population of disturbances that affect a broad range of medical treatments…
Una cosa è certa: la nostra salute è migliorata in modo strepitoso nel tempo, senonché – per quanto ne sappiamo – i progressi sanitari non hanno contribuito all’impresa, l’intero miglioramento è da attribuire a fattori diversi. La “speranza di vita” sintetizza bene anche gli altri indicatori della nostra salute:
… large and significant lifespan effects: a three year loss for smoking, a six year gain for rural living, a ten year loss for being underweight, and about fifteen year losses each for low income and low physical activity (in addition to the usual effects of age and gender)…
Persino professare una religione incide sulla salute  più di quanto spendi per il medico.
Riassunto:
Let us now summarize and interpret these results. Medicine is composed of a great many specific activities. Presumably some of these activities help patients, some hurt patients, and some are neutral. (Don’t believe medicine can hurt? Consider the high rate of medical errors, and see the Fisher & Welch Journal of American Medical Association 1999 theory article.)…
Tesi:
I thus claim: we could cut U.S. medical spending in half without substantial net health costs…
In realtà Hanson non chiede riforme, chiede solo  che gli esperti parlino chiaro quanto lui:
… Yes, I know, these are not politically realistic proposals. But at least health policy experts should publicly contradict those who overemphasize medicine…
O che perlomeno parte dei fondi vengano dirottati su studi di vasta scala che tentino di replicare ulteriormente quelli ora a nostra disposizione:
If health policy experts hesitate on my proposals due to doubts about how much we can rely on the RAND experiment and correlation studies, then they should at the very least immediately and fully support channeling available funding into repeating the RAND experiment today
C’è poi un consiglio personale: meno dottori e meno medicine:
Do you have little voice in health policy or research? Then at least you can change your own medical behavior: if you would not pay for medicine out of your own pocket, then don’t bother to go when others offer to pay; the RAND experiment strongly suggests that on average such medicine is as likely to hurt as to help…
Ma la verità più inquietante è  che molte cure mediche fanno indubitabilmente bene:
What about studies suggesting larger benefits in particular areas, e.g., immunization, infant care, and emergency care? Yes, there are categories of medicine where larger benefits seem plausible, and… empirical studies support such claims…
Parlo di “verità inquietante” perché – visto che molta sanità giova - cio’ significa che molta sanità uccide di brutto (l’effetto aggregato è zero). Gli errori medici sono i maggiori indiziati, anche perché nessuno conosce la loro entità (è di pochi giorni fa la sentenza che rende illegittimo installare una telecamera in sala operatoria). Molti medici ci uccidono, dobbiamo prendere atto di questa elementare verità.
Si tratta di uno spreco che riguarda i nostri tempi? Tutt’altro a parere degli storici.
… What if everything has changed recently? Overreliance on medicine seems to be quite ancient and widespread; historians suggest that until recently our ancestors would have been better off avoiding doctors…
Questa osservazione ci fa capire che una notizia tanto sgradevole vale probabilmente anche per l’ Europa, sebbene mediamente la spesa sanitaria europea sia inferiore (anche in epoche passate – infatti - si spendeva di meno).
Come mai nei test mirati di solito si registra una certa efficienza delle pratiche mediche mentre l’effetto aggregato è zero? Risposta: Publication bias, data minimg, leaky placebo effect… Nel caso della sperimentazione specifica esistono interessi mirati che si fanno sentire sfruttando i molti bias a disposizione (sopra cito i tre più notevoli), mentre negli studi sull’effetto aggregato gli interessi in campo pesano molto meno avendo un problema di free riding.
… How could we be this wrong about medicine? If you wonder how the usual medical literature could give such a misleading impression of aggregate medical effects on health, I will point to funding and publication selection biases, statistical tests ignoring data mining, leaky placebo effects, differences between lab and field environments, and the fact that most treatments today have no studies
Ma perché il consumatore dovrebbe buttare i suoi soldi in cure che non lo beneficiano? Qui Hanson favorisce un’ipotesi evoluzionista: siamo abituati ad usare la sanità per ostentare la nostra cura verso le persone a cui teniamo (“faccio di tutto per il mio piccolo…”). Dal punto di vista evoluzionistico la cura sanitaria prestata all’altro era un modo per stabilire preziose alleanze ed iniziare o rinsaldare una cooperazione: in questo senso l’efficacia delle cure è secondario rispetto al gesto.
… I’ll point you to my forthcoming Medical Hypotheses article, wherein I suggest humans long ago evolved a tendency to use medicine to “show that we care,” rather than just to get healthy. Briefly, the idea is that our ancestors showed loyalty by taking care of sick allies, and that, for such signals, how much one spends matters more than how effective is the care, and commonly-observed clues of quality matter more than private clues…
COMMENTO PERSONALE
Accolgo in toto l’analisi di Hanson. Sarà perché i “miei” due ultimi morti hanno avuto probabilmente la vita accorciata dal sistema sanitario, ovviamente non ne ho la certezza ma la cosa è plausibile, naturalmente non ho né voglia né tempo di approfondire (del resto cosa potrei fare?) ma sta di fatto che i dati aggregati non mi sorprendano. Non credo però che un taglio del 50% della spesa sanitaria (ammettiamo per un momento che sia politicamente fattibile) riduca il problema. Dove tagliare? Il timore di fare errori frenerebbe la mano a chiunque; e anche qui sono con Hanson nella sua visione evoluzionista del problema: tagliare sarebbe una dichiarazione di guerra più che una riforma razionale. L’aspetto simbolico della cura sanitaria domina sul contenuto reale. C’è un’ultima cosa: se in medicina l’aspetto simbolico è tanto importante sarei prudente nella condanna della medicina alternativa, si rischia di prendere lucciole per lanterne ostentando tanta sicumera.
STUDI E META-STUDI CITATI 
Fuchs, Health Affairs, 2004 -
Hadley, Medical Care Research and Review, 2003 -
Auster, Leveson, & Sarachek, Journal of Human Resources, in 1969 -
Byrne, Pietz, Woodard, & Petersen Health Economics 2007 -
Fisher, et al. Annals of Internal Medicine 2003 -
Fisher et. al. Health Services Research 2000 -
Skinner and Wennberg 1998 -
Lantz, et al. study in the Journal of the American Medical Association 1998 -
RAND health insurance experiment -
Fisher & Welch Journal of American Medical Association 1999 -
Filmer & Pritchett Social Science and Medicine 1999 - Joseph Doyle 2007 -

medici

martedì 6 settembre 2016

Is More Medicine Better? (Cato Unbound) by Alan Garber, David Cutler, Dana Goldman, Robin Hanson

Is More Medicine Better? (Cato Unbound) by Alan Garber, David Cutler, Dana Goldman, Robin Hanson
You have 69 highlighted passages
You have 51 notes
Last annotated on September 6, 2016
Hanson points to a spate of studies — especially the huge RAND health insurance experiment — to show that “in the aggregate, variations in medical spending usually show no statistically significant medical effect on health.”Read more at location 74
Note: SPESA SANITARIA SALUTE Edit
letters. (Send them to wwilkinson@cato.org.)       Lead Essay CutRead more at location 88
Note: i medici salvano tante vite quante ne uccidono: non esiste correlazione, né a livello nazionale né a livello internaxionale, tra spesa sanitaria e speranza di vita altri fattori che contano di più: fumo rural living dieta temperatura ambiente esercizi reddito l evidenza errori medici dove funziona: pronto soccorso immunità e cure neonatali lì ha senso investire ma la spesa aggregata deve calare xché l illusione ottica persiste (placebo pub bias show caring) Edit
Cut Medicine in Half Car inspections and repairs take a small fraction of our total spending on cars, gas, roads, and parking. But imagine that we were so terrified of accidents due to faulty cars that we spent most of our automotive budget having our cars inspected and adjusted every week by Ph.D. car experts. Obsessed by the fear of not finding a defect that might cause an accident, imagine we made sure inspections were heavily regulated and subsidized by government.Read more at location 88
Note: OSSESSIONE Edit
Then let me speak plainly: our main problem in health policy is a huge overemphasis on medicine.Read more at location 102
Note: HEALTH POLICY Edit
But health policy experts know that we see at best only weak aggregate relations between health and medicine, in contrast to apparently strong aggregate relations between health and many other factors, such as exercise, diet, sleep, smoking, pollution, climate, and social status.Read more at location 103
Note: CORRELAZIONE. FATTORI Edit
Children are told that medicine is the reason we live longer than our ancestors, and our media tell us constantly of promising medical advances.Read more at location 110
Note: MEDIA Edit
In contrast, few doctors know that historians think medicine has played at best a minor role in our increased lifespans over the centuries. And only a few health policy experts now know about the dozens of studies of the aggregate health effects of medicine. Worse, these studies can seem muddled, with some showing positive, some showing negative, and some showing neutral effects of medicine on health.Read more at location 112
Note: VERITÀ Edit
In the aggregate, variations in medical spending usually show no statistically significant medical effect on health.Read more at location 116
Note: ORTODOSSIA Edit
By “variations” I mean the large changes in medical spending often induced by observable disturbances, such as changing culture or prices, and by “aggregate” I mean studies of the health effect on an entire population of disturbances that affect a broad range of medical treatments.Read more at location 120
Note: VARIAZIONE AGGREGAZIONE Edit
Note that a muddled appearance of differing studies showing differing effects is to be expected. After all, even if medicine has little effect, random statistical error and biases toward presenting and publishing expected results will ensure that many published studies suggest positive medical benefits.Read more at location 123
Note: MUDDLED Edit
(A general review is found in Fuchs, Health Affairs, 2004 . A contrarian review is Hadley, Medical Care Research and Review, 2003.) The first study known to me was by Auster, Leveson, & Sarachek, Journal of Human Resources, in 1969Read more at location 125
Note: STUDI Edit
a Byrne, Pietz, Woodard, & Petersen Health Economics 2007 studyRead more at location 134
a Fisher, et al. Annals of Internal Medicine 2003 studyRead more at location 137
Note: STUDI Edit
a Fisher et. al. Health Services Research 2000 study, and a related Skinner and Wennberg 1998 study,Read more at location 139
Note: STUDI Edit
1998 Lantz, et al. study in the Journal of the American Medical AssociationRead more at location 148
large and significant lifespan effects: a three year loss for smoking, a six year gain for rural living, a ten year loss for being underweight, and about fifteen year losses each for low income and low physical activity (in addition to the usual effects of age and gender).Read more at location 150
Note: COSA INCODE Edit
discussion of the health effects of medical spending variations usually turns eventually to our clearest evidence on the subject: the RAND health insurance experiment.Read more at location 155
Note: LO STUDIO MAGGIORE Edit
Let us now summarize and interpret these results. Medicine is composed of a great many specific activities. Presumably some of these activities help patients, some hurt patients, and some are neutral. (Don’t believe medicine can hurt? Consider the high rate of medical errors, and see the Fisher & Welch Journal of American Medical Association 1999 theory article.)Read more at location 183
Note: RIASSUNTO Edit
Note: ERRORI Edit
I thus claim: we could cut U.S. medical spending in half without substantial net health costs.Read more at location 196
Note: 50 Edit
How should we cut medical spending? There are many possibilities, and I may prefer some possibilities to others. But I do not want such preferences to distract from the main point: most any way to implement such a cut would likely give big gains.Read more at location 198
Note: COME? Edit
Yes, I know, these are not politically realistic proposals. But at least health policy experts should publicly contradict those who overemphasize medicine,Read more at location 202
Note: PARLAR CHOARO Edit
If health policy experts hesitate on my proposals due to doubts about how much we can rely on the RAND experiment and correlation studies, then they should at the very least immediately and fully support channeling available funding into repeating the RAND experiment today,Read more at location 205
Note: ALMENO RICHIESTA NUOVI ESP. Edit
Do you have little voice in health policy or research? Then at least you can change your own medical behavior: if you would not pay for medicine out of your own pocket, then don’t bother to go when others offer to pay; the RAND experiment strongly suggests that on average such medicine is as likely to hurt as to help.Read more at location 210
Note: CONSIGLIO PERSONALE Edit
What about studies suggesting larger benefits in particular areas, e.g., immunization, infant care, and emergency care? Yes, there are categories of medicine where larger benefits seem plausible, and where empirical studies support such claims. (See, for example, Filmer & Pritchett Social Science and Medicine 1999 and Joseph Doyle 2007.)Read more at location 213
Note: MEDICINA CHE FA BENE Edit
What about health and innovation externalities? Your health may give positive benefits to others, but most medicine on the margin seems to have little to do with health.Read more at location 223
Note: ESTERNALITÀ Edit
What if everything has changed recently? Overreliance on medicine seems to be quite ancient and widespread; historians suggest that until recently our ancestors would have been better off avoiding doctors.Read more at location 230
Note: PASSATO Edit
How could we be this wrong about medicine? If you wonder how the usual medical literature could give such a misleading impression of aggregate medical effects on health, I will point to funding and publication selection biases, statistical tests ignoring data mining, leaky placebo effects, differences between lab and field environments, and the fact that most treatments today have no studies.Read more at location 236
Note: RAGIONI DEL BIAS NELLA RICERCA Edit
I’ll point you to my forthcoming Medical Hypotheses article, wherein I suggest humans long ago evolved a tendency to use medicine to “show that we care,” rather than just to get healthy. Briefly, the idea is that our ancestors showed loyalty by taking care of sick allies, and that, for such signals, how much one spends matters more than how effective is the care, and commonly-observed clues of quality matter more than private clues.Read more at location 241
Note: BIAS PERSONALE SHOW YOU CARE Edit
Note: ALLEANZA COOPERAZIONE Edit
half could still be a good idea.   Response Essays UseRead more at location 249
Note: il problema è dove tagliare. si rischia di fare disastri Edit
The most important reason why medical costs increase over time is because we develop new ways of treating patients and provide that care to ever more people. Consider the most expensive part of medical care: care for people with cardiovascular disease.  In 1950, a person with a heart attack received bed rest and morphine (to dull the pain).  That was how Dwight Eisenhower was treated when he had a heart attack in 1955.  This therapy is not very expensive, but it is also not very effective.  Today, such a person receives clot-busting drugs and other medications, and intensive interventions such as bypass surgery or angioplasty.  These technologies are certainly costly.  Spending in the few months after a heart attack is about $25,000 per patient.  And yet the care provides enormous benefits.  Mortality in the aftermath of a heart attack has fallen by three-quarters since the 1950s. Read more at location 276
Note: OBIEZIONE Edit
Virtually every study of medical innovation suggests that changes in the nature of medical care over time are clearly worth the cost.Read more at location 283
Note: OB Edit
Reconciling this finding with the fact that there is a lot of waste is not hard conceptually. Read more at location 290
The problem in medical care is how to separate the good from the bad. Read more at location 292
Note: IL PROBLEMA Edit
He is certainly correct that the role of medicine has been overstated.Read more at location 317
Note: OB 2 Edit
The HIE is more than three decades old, and in that time period many new therapies have emerged.Read more at location 330
There is a lot of waste in the system, as the evidence cited by Hanson and others makes clear.Read more at location 336
Note: SPRECHI Edit
Watch Where You CutRead more at location 346
Note: OB 3 Edit
Information can be a powerful toolRead more at location 391
let’s give them the tools they need.   The Conversation LetRead more at location 413
Note: riassunto delle posizioni tesi: chi si oppone dice che i tagli potrebbero interessare la sanità utile. nn siamo d accordo su come agire. ma xchè non agiamo su dove c è accordo: i tagli non provocherebbero danni alla salute risparmiando risorse ipotesi di critica attesa: stidi fallaci effetto maschera opportunità politica parallelo studi e incremento prezzi moralità intenzionale Edit
Let Go of the Medical Monkey TrapRead more at location 413
Note: RISPOSTA Edit
So far, no commenter on my essay seems willing to let go of the nut of effective medicine, held in the gourd of the second half of medical spending.Read more at location 415
Note: NESSUNO AFFRONTA IL NOCCIOLO Edit
I challenged health policy experts to “publicly agree or disagree” that “it has long been nearly a consensus” that since “variations in local medical culture … [and] prices” produce spending variations with little apparent relation to aggregate health,Read more at location 422
Note: SPALLE AL MURO Edit
Cutler seems at first to agree, saying “if the high spending areas were brought to the level of the lower spending areas … we could save 25 to 30 percent of Medicare spending.” But then he says higher prices are “wrong” because they do not “separate the good from the bad” as “consumers appear to cut back indiscriminately,” such as stopping drugs. Instead Cutler wants “carefully targeted evaluations” of better “supply side policies.” Goldman agrees “the role of medicine has been overstated,” but also rejects higher prices because it “isn’t enough” to eliminate waste, as patients are “as likely to reduce appropriate as inappropriate care.” Instead, “we should be spending a lot less in some areas, but also spending a lot more elsewhere.” Garber says my “diagnosis … is not particularly controversial” but rejects “policies that would heedlessly cut high-value benefits along with the low-value marginal benefits.”Read more at location 425
Note: LE RISPOSTE IN SINTESI Edit
Shannon Browlee’s Overtreated, published today, argues “between 20 and 30 cents on every health care dollar we spend goes towards useless treatments and hospitalizations.” Yet even she will not support crude price increases or spending capsRead more at location 436
Note: ALTRO ESPERTO Edit
Bloggers Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein reject higher prices because “patients … will just cut care indiscriminately.” Tyler Cowen similarly shrugs “I’m not sure what mechanism will get rid of the bad half” of spending. (Arnold Kling, Bryan Caplan, and Seth Roberts seem more sympathetic, but take no explicit position.)Read more at location 438
Note: ALTRI Edit
I’m all for finding better ways to favor helpful over harmful medicine, but since we have no consensus on how to do this, why must this distant possibility stop us from publicizing and acting now on our consensus that we expect little net health harm from crude cuts?Read more at location 445
Critics seem to me to suffer a “leave no man behind” obsession that makes the best the enemy of the good.Read more at location 447
Note: SI AMMETTE A DENTI STRETTI. BISOGNA FARLO AD ALTA VOCE Edit
But apparently I stand alone; what am I missing? Help me see your reasoning. Please, pick one or add another:Read more at location 452
Note: SOLO Edit
Do you claim aggregate studies on balance do show spending increases from observed disturbances,Read more at location 454
Note: Bias NEGLI STUDI? Edit
Do you claim the existence of identifiable treatments with positive benefits, which are cut when spending is cut, shows that aggregate spending variations do give substantial aggregate health gains?Read more at location 456
Note: PAURA? Edit
not in fact similarRead more at location 458
spent on general utilityRead more at location 460
Do you claim that implementing simple crude policies like price increases or spending caps today would make it much harder to implement other policies later,Read more at location 462
Note: NUOVE POLITICHE? Edit
Do you argue that it is immoral to ever “leave a man behind” to disease, even if this tends to hurt as many in the attempt as it helps?Read more at location 464
Note: IMMORAL? Edit
No Grand ConspiracyRead more at location 471
If we cut half — without knowing what to cut — we will likely cut half the value.Read more at location 473
Do you claim the existence of identifiable treatments with positive benefits, which are cut when spending is cut, shows that aggregate spending variations do give substantial aggregate health gains? My response is yes.Read more at location 478
Are the Aggregate Studies Misleading? Why?Read more at location 497
What Is the Effect of a Price Increase?Read more at location 521
Per capita income in the United States is 30 percent higher than in Sweden, and yet Americans are no happier than Swedes; indeed, Swedes report greater levels of happiness. Based on these data, can one conclude that cutting income in the United States by 30 percent across the board would leave Americans unaffected?Read more at location 546
don’t do ourselves any favors by pretending it is easy.   StillRead more at location 558
Note: ancora sintesi posizioni precedenti cutler e il parallelo tra reddito e felicità Edit
six possible reasonsRead more at location 561
David, in this case you seem to be suggesting that aggregate happiness studies are missing adequate controls, i.e., you suggest that happiness studies which controlled for income equality and social goods would in fact show that aggregate variations in GDP are substantially related to aggregate variations in happiness. This is exactly the kind of specific critique that I request for aggregate studies on medicine and health.Read more at location 571
Please, why, specifically, are such studies misleading?Read more at location 574
health insurance premiums above the cost of this limited plan?   Yes,Read more at location 589
Note: i costi di transizione Edit
Dana gives an example of “what is missing from aggregate studies”:Read more at location 595
Well, yes, any industry must pay transition costs to switch from less to more efficient technologies,Read more at location 598
Maybe people in Miami prefer surgery, and people in Minnesota prefer medical management.Read more at location 606
BewareRead more at location 612
Note: doppio standard quando c è da spendere e quando c è da tagliare Edit
Consider a health policy issue like child car seatsRead more at location 613
In this situation I predict most health policy experts would clearly and publicly say that we should act now to promote, e.g., child car seats orRead more at location 617
When asked what reasons they have for doubting that existing aggregate studies suggest crude medical cuts will not hurt health, the three commentators here at Cato Unbound do not point to the same reasons.Read more at location 625
David Cutler suggests aggregate studies are missing important controls (which he does not identify). Alan Garber dismisses simple cuts as politically infeasible, but does seem willing to endorse lower tax-based subsidies. Dana Goldman first points to “the existence of identifiable treatments with positive benefits, which are cut when spending is cut.” Instead of responding to questions about this, he switches to suggesting high spending region doctors have invested more in learning expensive treatments, and when questioned about this he switches to unmeasured differing preferences; “Maybe people in Miami prefer surgery, and people in Minnesota prefer medical management.”Read more at location 627
If aggregate studies had suggested medical spending helps health a lot, I can’t imagine health policy experts being nearly as reluctant to endorse simple crude spending increases. This seems a double-standard.Read more at location 631