Tyler Cowen writes a useful summary of our healthcare system’s costs & productivity vs other nations:

The relevant measures were either life expectancy after treatment or measures of the quality of life. And how about the results:
The United States is more productive in all these diseases except for diabetes in the United Kingdom. [emphasis added] The reasons for this result can be traced directly to the huge differences in the way the health care sector is organized and governed across these three countries. The UK health care system is almost entirely government owned and run…The result has been that the United Kingdom has no invested as quickly in technologies that have dramatically improved the diagnostic capabilities of medicine and significantly reduced recovery time…Germany, on the other hand, has a system more like the United States had twenty years ago. In Germany, medical expenses are paid for on a task-by-task basis for services of doctors and hospitals. As a result, hospitals in Germany have no financial incentive to reduce length of stay.

“Pediatricians and family physicians should not prescribe antidepressants for depressed children and adolescents because the drugs barely work and their side effects are often significant, Australian researchers have concluded”, Gardiner Harris writes.

Gina Kolata writes about some different thinking with respect to opening arteries (using stents & bypass surgery) vis a vis heart attack risks:

But the new model of heart disease shows that the vast majority of heart attacks do not originate with obstructions that narrow arteries.
Instead, recent and continuing studies show that a more powerful way to prevent heart attacks in patients at high risk is to adhere rigorously to what can seem like boring old advice ? giving up smoking, for example, and taking drugs to get blood pressure under control, drive cholesterol levels down and prevent blood clotting.
Researchers estimate that just one of those tactics, lowering cholesterol to what guidelines suggest, can reduce the risk of heart attack by a third but is followed by only 20 percent of heart patients.

Clayton Christensen, a Harvard professor who studies disruptive innovations recently discussed an idea to reduce health care costs for many typical patient requests:

“Christensen nailed it on the head when he said this is an industry in desperate need of disruption. In its current state, a gross amount of overhead costs prepare hospitals and doctors to treat the most complex illnesses known to mankind.
In reality, most people need a quick look and a prescription. Christensen talked about a new business model coming out of Minnesota as the perfect disruptor for medicine.
Because Minnesota allows nurses to write prescriptions, the idea would be to create medical drop-in sites that treat 14 primary illnesses. Everything from strep throat to “burn your warts off.”
The flat rate for a checkup and ‘scrip is $29. If it takes more than 15 minutes, it’s free.
This is what you and I want, right? No long wait on the phone. No huge bills for a simple checkup. Quick and easy, in and out.
This would provide an alternate product to consumers and make going to a big ol’ HMO with a sore throat an unacceptable hassle for most consumers.
Christensen is suggesting this model to the Johns Hopkins hospitals in Maryland as a way for them to build their brand, embrace a disruptive force to come and give their patients what they want.
The Baltimore medical giant is reticent, he says, which is a typical response from an existing business reluctant to embrace disruption. “

“Say what you want about Bernie Sanders, but he?is using the Web correctly.? He has a great Web site dedicated to drug price reform.? Here is a comparison between US and Canadian prices on 50 commonly used drugs.? The upshot of a study his team put together is:”

… that the average prices that senior citizens in Vermont must pay are 81% higher than the average prices that Canadian consumers must pay and 112% higher than the average prices that Mexican consumers must pay.

From John Robb

Avram Lank writes about health savings accounts (similar to IRA’s), and the success a Wisconsin Bank has had promoting them.

The Washington Post’s associate editor tells the tale of his brush with death