A Real Town Meeting in the People’s Green Republic of Santa Cruz
Tuesday night, I took in, in person, two and a half hours of town hall meeting with the same congressman, Sam Farr, in my own town of Santa Cruz, this time. Now, it’s important to understand that Santa...
View ArticleObamaCare and the Long Game
The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday has garnered a number of ideas for me. I’ll admit that I was a little bit shocked when I heard that ObamaCare had been upheld. The lawyers who argued against...
View ArticleAround the Web: ObamaCare Edition (Part 2)
There is a lot of great stuff out there on the recent ruling. Here are a few I found interesting: The ObamaCare Ruling: A Libertarian Call to Rise by philosopher Kevin Vallier. Constitutional Disaster?...
View ArticleA Glimmer of Freedom in Health Care
The politicians are bound and determined to seize total control of health care and damn the consequences. And yet … And yet every so often a glimmer of a free market in health care appears like a weed...
View ArticleNational-Socialist Management Practices; No Obama Derangement Syndrome
[Editor's note: this essay first appeared on Dr. Delacroix's blog, Facts Matter, on July 18 2009] Quick update on health care on 7/20/09: I have said before on this blog that there is something wrong...
View ArticleA Free Market in Medical Services
There are two directions for the reform of the U.S. medical services systems. One is towards welfare statism, the control of the medical system by the federal government, and the other is towards...
View ArticleCastro: Coercing Cubans into Health
On Black Friday, one of the few remaining tyrants in the world passed away (see the great spread of democracy in the world since 1988). Fidel Castro is a man that I will not mourn nor will I celebrate...
View ArticleHow Well Has Cuba Managed To Improve Health Outcomes? (part 1)
Since the passing of Fidel Castro, I have devoted myself to researching a proper assessment of his regime’s achievements in matters of health care. The more I dig, the more I am convinced that his...
View ArticleHow Well Has Cuba Managed To Improve Health Outcomes? (part 2)
In a recent post, I pointed out that life expectancy in Cuba was high largely as a result of really low rates of car ownerships. Fewer cars, fewer road accidents, higher life expectancy. As I pointed...
View ArticleHow Well Has Cuba Managed To Improve Health Outcomes? (part 3)
As part of my series of blog post reconsidering health outcomes in Cuba, I argued that other countries were able to generate substantial improvements in life expectancy even if Cuba is at the top. Then...
View ArticleThe Pox of Liberty – dixit the Political Economy of Public Health
A few weeks ago, I finished reading the Pox of Liberty authored by Werner Troesken. Although I know some of his co-authors personally (notably the always helpful Nicola Tynan whose work on water...
View ArticleOn the paradox of poverty and good health in Cuba
One of the most interesting (in my opinion) paradox in modern policy debates relates to how Cuba, a very poor country, has been able to generate health outcomes close to the levels observed in rich...
View ArticleSome ideas to guide your thoughts on health care
This post is meant to help my non-economist friends think more clearly about how we pay for health care. I’ll talk about markets, but the truth is that the American system is built of deeply...
View ArticleIn health care, expenditures to GDP may be misleading!
In debates over health care reform in the US, it is frequent for Canada’s name to pop up in order to signal that Canada is spending much less of its GDP to health care and seems to generate relatively...
View ArticleLife expectancy at birth is not a predictor of health care efficiency…
This is going to be a short post to argue that pundits (and some economists) need to stop quoting life expectancy figures to argue for/against a particular health care system. This belief is best...
View ArticleThe Real Cost of National Health Care
Around early August 2018, a research paper from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University by Charles Blahous made both the Wall Street Journal and Fox News within two days. It also attracted...
View ArticleThe 2020 Dems
The two Democratic presidential debates were performed against a broad background of consecrated untruths and the debates gave them new life. Mostly, I don’t use the word “lies” because pseudo-facts...
View ArticleMexican Productivity and Poverty: a Superficial, Street-Level View
I just spent three and a half weeks in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (summer 2019). Below are some impressions. First things first; I have to give you the severe limits of my field of vision while I was...
View Article“Medicare For All” will never work: a Brazilian view
Even though I don’t follow the news, it’s somewhat impossible not to know that Bernie Sanders is making a lot of buzz as the possible Democrat candidate for the coming presidential elections. I know:...
View ArticleCasual Empiricism: USPS
It looks to me (as I refresh tracking numbers) that the post office is still reeling after several months of attempted voter suppression. It also looks to me like even though Trump is on his way out,...
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