Most people think Ronald Reagan cut the US welfare system. Reagan did cut anti-poverty and education programs, but overall, he greatly expanded the US welfare system by increasing resources for pensions and healthcare. Reagan increased funding for these programs more…
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The connection between exceptionally low US social spending and exceptionally high healthcare spending.
Social spending is a ‘normal good‘ which means that richer countries (and richer people) spend more money on it. One of the odd facts about the United States is that we spend a lot more of our income on healthcare…
Posted in Health
Healthcare in Japan
Japan has a remarkable universal health insurance system that boasts the longest longevity in the world despite costing well under half what US health care costs per capita. It is a Bismarck system with non-profit insurance companies, and mainly for-profit…
Posted in Health
Doctors Don’t Put Up With Much Moral Hazard From Medicaid Patients
I teach health economics to medical professionals and every year many of them say they perceive greater moral hazard among Medicaid recipients than among the rest of us. I think this perception is partly due to the way the economics…
007 A License To Cut
Most US states require a license to cut hair. This is basically a way for the barbershop lobby to restrict competition and raise wages. This might be good for reducing American inequality because barbers are probably below the median wage…
Obamacare vs. Medicare
A lot of Americans dislike the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) because they say it expands government too much and will increase taxes. As Milton Friedman accurately said, for the government, to spend is to tax. So how big is…
Complaints About Moral Hazard In Health Care Are Frequently Immoral
Mutilitarianism is money-metric utilitarianism in which ‘the social good’ is measured in money according to each individual’s willingness and ability to pay (WAP). One of the immoral tenets of standard economics is the mutilitarian idea that the demand curve (WAP)…
Medianism 