Update: March 19, 2023 How much money would be enough compensation to poison yourself? Not enough to kill you, but enough to make you seriously ill. Suppose you could earn millions of dollars for getting mildly poisoned and then you…
Blog Archives
Mind the gap in life expectancy WITHIN America
Updated 6/6/2023 We read a lot about the growing political divide in America and we hear a lot of commentary about the two Americas in terms of income inequality. But a bigger inequality problem is the gap in life expectancy. …
Posted in Health
The expected value of potential lives lost during atomic testing
Rob Reid wrote a great explanation of the horrible risk taken during the Manhattan Project, when American nuclear scientists took a chance estimated at one-in-three million that the first atomic test would create a chain reaction that would ignite the…
A public conspiracy to protect pharmaceutical profits at taxpayer expense
Every so often I get requests to sign a petition supporting various business interests. The petitions are promoted by fly-by-night “organizations” that are fronts for lobbyists like EconomistLetter.com. Lately I’ve been getting emails from ConcernedEconomists.org that are worried about the pharmaceutical industry’s…
Posted in Health, Public Finance
Monopolistic competition in health care
According to Modern Healthcare magazine, medical ambulances charged between $26,000 and over a half million dollars for each individual flight in North Dakota over the past four years. The prices averaged around $60,000 which is extremely steep given that almost…
Posted in Health, Public Finance
Criminalizing drugs makes about as much sense as criminalizing depression.
Which has a greater cost to society, depression or addiction? The estimated burden on America is similar. The White House reported in 2014: The economic cost of drug abuse in the US was estimated at $193 billion in 2007, the…
Posted in Health, Public Finance
Medianism 