Summary: The Inflation Reduction Act allows Medicare to negotiate the price of some drugs. What if this happened at a larger scale? The dismal answer would be “less incentive for pharma to innovate.” Yes, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but what about a cheaper lunch? The Indicator offers an optimistic view and our classroom exercise analyzes these policy ideas that may offer a solution to this “knotty” dilemma between prices and new drugs.
Doctors Trzeciak and Mazzarelli talk about the compassion crisis in our healthcare system. In their book titled Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes A Difference, the doctors explain when healthcare workers show a little compassion it can decrease costs, improve medical outcomes, and even help with physician burnout.
Summary: The Planet Money team shines a light on a business that helps people save money on healthcare expenses in way similar to a travel agency that shows the prices of different flights and destinations.
Summary: The Country of Origin label is a powerful element on upscale brands. Italians consider it a national economic resource, but the stamp can’t always be believed. US laws say the “last substantial transformation” must be in the country of origin, and tracking manufacturing is difficult at best.
Summary: As the health insurance market prepares for the changes brought about by implementation of Affordable Care Act, this podcast considers how insurance companies might begin to target their new consumers. Considers marketing and branding strategies as well as how insurers might think about using incentive schemes to retain customers.
Summary: NPR interviews Katherine Baicker, a health economist at Harvard University to discuss questions concerning the efficiency of Medicaid in relation to its cost and implementation.
Summary: This podcast outlines the organ market or rather the non-existent, scarce organ market that doctors unfortunately have to face when they put their patients on an organ waiting list.
Original air date: May 18, 2012
Length: 15:11 min
Discussion Prompt (1): Consider the ten principles of economics that Mankiw discussions in Chapter 1. How do they relate to the situation in this podcast?
Discussion Prompt (2): This podcast gives examples of how different systems for allocating lungs create incentives (for doctors, for patients) and thus impact choice. How do you see that incentives, choices and outcomes are impacted if they allocation is based on: whoever is sickest? What if they allocation system is based on who is on the waiting list first? What if the system was a market-based system based on ability to pay? Use examples from the podcast or your own thinking that expands beyond the podcast content.
Follow-up Prompt: You all make some good observations here and lead me to think that it is also important to think about the goal of the system – is the goal to be fair? is the goal for patients not to have to wait? is the goal to have the most number of patients live ? Is the goal to save the sickest? How do you think that understanding the ‘goal’ helps us to see the problems and options for allocation?
Written Assignment Prompt: The podcast mentions doctors signing up patients for lung transplants before they need or are sick enough for them. What are the ethical issues associated with such a decision? Why don’t we see markets at work in this scenario? How might you create an alternate system for allocating this precious item?
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