It’s a Woman’s World

 

Tens of millions of men have marred life chances because schools are bad at educating boys, because they are not enmeshed in the long-term relationships that instill good habits and because insecure men do stupid and self-destructive things.

Over the past 40 years, women’s wages have risen sharply but, as Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney of the Hamilton Project point out, median incomes of men have dropped 28 percent and male labor force participation rates are down 16 percent. Next time somebody talks to you about wage stagnation, have them break it down by sex. It’s not only globalization and technological change causing this stagnation. It’s the deterioration of the moral and social landscape, especially for men.

Full op-ed by David Brooks in The New York Times.

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Jan 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment | by

Teachers Get Free Botox in Buffalo

 

The Buffalo public school system’s health insurance covers plastic surgery. There is no copay. According to BuffaloNews.com, the cost of the benefit rose from $1 million in 2004 to $9 million in 2009. That was 9 percent of the district’s total spending on health benefits for employees and retirees. According to Jordan Weissmann of The Atlantic, the union has said that it will be happy to drop the benefit in the next round of contract negotiations.

However, Buffalo teachers haven’t bothered to negotiate a new contract since the last one expired in 2004. Thanks to New York State’s Triborough Amendment, they don’t have to. The old contract automatically stays in force until the union reaches a new agreement. As the old agreement has lavish benefits and yearly 2.5% step increases, the union has no incentive to enter into negotiations with a city that receives 48 percent of its revenues with from what New York Governor Andrew Cuomo calls a “functionally bankrupt” state and might, for once, actually be interested in driving a hard bargain.

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Jan 27, 2012 | 3 comments | by

Should Healthy People Take Cholesterol Drugs to Prevent Heart Disease?

 

The case against:

Some statin supporters argue that even if the data don’t support the benefits of statins in healthy people, they might help and can’t hurt. But that’s untenable, because statins undeniably harm some people. Besides increasing the risk for developing diabetes, statins can cause memory loss, muscle weakness, stomach distress, and aches and pains. These aren’t merely anecdotal results, as some critics assert; they’re documented by recent studies.

Until and unless further persuasive evidence is available that the benefits of statins outweigh the known side effects, their use should be limited to patients with known heart disease to help prevent recurrent heart attacks. Even for this population, physicians should disclose that statins likely won’t extend their life. 

Fortunately, there is a proven, widely available treatment for people at high risk for heart disease that does prolong survival…. proper diet and exercise. If we were to spend a small fraction of the annual cost of statins on making fruits and vegetables and physical activity more accessible, the effect on heart disease, as well as high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and overall life span, would be far greater than any benefit statins can produce.

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Jan 27, 2012 | 4 comments | by

Wealthier is Healthier

 

This result, confirmed by every study that’s ever looked at the question, appears to be also confirmed for the top 1 percent (by wealth) in the United States:

Money may not buy happiness, but the Fed survey suggests it buys good health. About 90 percent of the 1 percenters describe themselves as being in excellent or good health, compared with 75 percent of everybody else. About 85 percent expect to live into their 80s, compared with 68 percent of everybody else.

Full post by Robert Gebeloff and Shaila Dewan at Economix.
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Jan 27, 2012 | 3 comments | by

Is Medicaid Cheaper and Better than Private Insurance?

 

The claim that Medicaid is better coverage than private insurance was all the rage a couple of weeks ago thanks to a press release from Southern Methodist University highlighting doctoral candidate and adjunct professor Manan Roy’s paper “How Well Does the U.S. Government Provide Health Insurance.”

Before you rush out to enroll yourself and your family in the cheaper, better, Medicaid system, it might be worth taking some time to evaluate whether the slender evidence in the paper supports such a sweeping conclusion.

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Jan 26, 2012 | 5 comments | by

Fact of the Day

 

Had health care costs grown no faster than the Consumer Price Index from 1999 to 2009, an average American family would have had an additional $450 per month—more than $5,000 per year—to spend on other goods and services.

Source: Rand. HT to Timothy Taylor.

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Jan 26, 2012 | 3 comments | by

Headlines I Wish I Hadn’t Seen

 

CBO 2001 prediction: the publicly held debt of the federal government (then about $3.5 trillion) will be eliminated by 2010; it actually increased to $9 trillion.

Tax loopholes amount to over $1 trillion per year.

Doctors borrowing to live: Government-backed loans to doctors have surged more than 10-fold in the past decade.

Obama administration fights court decision that says bone marrow donors may be paid.

 

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Jan 26, 2012 | 3 comments | by

Recruiting Conservatives to Rearrange Deck Chairs on the ObamaCare Titanic

 

Here’s how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation described its $30,000 grant to the American Enterprise Institute in March, 2011, for two half-day assemblages of conservative experts on health care:

…The discussions will focus on: (1) developing concrete statements about specific health reform problems or problems with the ACA from the perspective of the assembled conservative experts; and (2) identifying potential solutions. The project will select topics by identifying major policy differences between ACA and competing Republican proposals.

Translation: Although we all know that the ObamaCare Titanic is soundly constructed, dissidents differ about the style, arrangement, and construction of its deck chairs. We wish to celebrate those differences by inviting dissidents to outline and discuss their competing proposals for deck chair redesign.

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Jan 26, 2012 | 6 comments | by

A Curious Little Study

 

A recently published study has been getting some attention, notably on the Incidental Economist blog. I say “recently published” because the study is actually several years old, based on a survey done nearly four years ago and asking questions about people’s experience in the 12 months prior to that.

The blog write-up calls the study “the downside of high deductible health plans,” but I’m not at all sure that’s the take-away. In fact, I’m not sure what the take-away is. I would invite you to read it and make your own conclusions, but it costs $35 to access at Springer Link — pretty pricey for a seven-page article.

In any case, the study finds that people who are in a high deductible health plan (HDHP) use fewer health services than people who are not.  That seems unsurprising. In fact, it is kind of the point of these plans.

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Jan 26, 2012 | 6 comments | by

EBRI’s Latest on HSA and HRA Balances

 

From an EBRI Issue Brief by Paul Fronstin:

Asset Levels Growing: In 2011, there was $12.4 billion in health savings accounts (HSAs) and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), spread across 8.4 million accounts, according to data from the 2011 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey, sponsored by EBRI and Mathew Greenwald & Associates. This is up from 2006, when there were 1.3 million accounts with $873.4 million in assets, and 2010, when 5.4 million accounts held $7.3 billion in assets.

After Leveling Off, Average Account Balances Increased: After average account balances leveled off in 2008 and 2009, and fell slightly in 2010, they increased in 2011. In 2006, account balances averaged $696. They increased to $1,320 in 2007, a 90 percent increase. Account balances averaged $1,356 in 2008 and $1,419 in 2009, 3 percent and 5 percent increases, respectively. In 2010, average account balances fell to $1,355, down 4.5 percent from the previous year. In 2011, average account balances increased to $1,470, a 9 percent increase from 2010.

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Jan 25, 2012 | 7 comments | by
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