Topic: Healthcare

Which Diseases Are on the Rise As We Fight COVID-19?

– August 5, 2020

“Proponents of COVID-19 prevention measures are perfectly willing to discuss the lives that are saved at the expense of economic progress. But when will there be widespread recognition that these very same measures could cause millions of people around the world to contract––and die from––other preventable diseases? Are those lives somehow exempt from our tradeoff tally?” ~ Fiona Harrigan

Crisis, Healthcare, Regulation

My Covid Cri de Cœur

– August 3, 2020

“I cannot explain why the public reacts rationally – that is, without much concern – to news of famous young people testing positive for COVID but, to other news about COVID, reacts irrationally. This discrepancy itself only causes me to worry further about our ability, or willingness, to put COVID in proper perspective in order to restore some semblance of civilized modern life.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Healthcare

How Did Spending on Health Care Plunge During a Pandemic?

– July 31, 2020

It may seem odd that health care spending could plunge during a pandemic, but the health care industry was subject to the same closure mandates as other industries; the results were also the same.

Crisis, Healthcare, Policy

Effort Matters: The Pioneering Work of Anders Ericsson

– July 29, 2020

“A regime of purposeful and deliberate practice has a big up-side: It cultivates resilience. Faced with a tough challenge, you know you can work through it; your experience with purposeful practice proves this to you.” ~ Barry Brownstein

Crisis, Education, Healthcare

Don’t Close the Schools but Protect Teachers and Staff

– July 26, 2020

“This issue should not be resolved with school closures. Rather schools should do the best they can to craft tailored responses that will allow them to stay open while ensuring vulnerable individuals are accommodated. Ultimately we must do the best we can to get society back on track to normalcy as the sacrifices that have characterized our response to COVID-19 have far outweighed the benefits.” ~ Ethan Yang

Crisis, Free Markets, Healthcare, History

Individualism and Public Health: Tensions and Challenges

– July 19, 2020

“The aim should be to strictly fence off and limit the scope of coercive public health as both an ideal and a practice. We should think of it as something like a nuclear reactor core – useful, even essential but something that needs to be tightly contained. This is the kind of project and activity that individualists and classical liberals should be engaged in.” ~ Stephen Davies

Crisis, Healthcare, Policy

Month Four of the Panic: Where Is the Evidence?

– July 19, 2020

“If there is no extraordinary evidence, why are there such extraordinary claims and responses? Why has the world medical, social, and economic order been torn apart for a pandemic that looks much like a normal influenza pandemic? These are the questions for which we will be seeking answers for years to come.” ~ Roger W. Koops

Crisis, Healthcare, History

Technocrats Should Observe the Hippocratic Oath

– July 18, 2020

“Whether by today’s standards or a medieval one, at a certain level of influence, unqualified prognostication is either ignorant, irresponsible, or deceptive. Pithy epigrams alongside basic skepticism, knowledge of personal hygiene, and a propensity to self-isolate in the face of illness have superintended the human relationship with microorganisms more than massive agent-based models ever will.” ~ Peter C. Earle

Crisis, Economic Education, Healthcare

Adding Detail to Paul Romer’s Simplistic Plan for Reopening America

– July 17, 2020

“Romer has in fact not thought this plan through very deeply, and his response to critiques seems to be that they shouldn’t do so either. His is a superficial plan that relies on magical thinking.” ~ James E. Hanley

Crisis, Economic Education, Healthcare

What Economists Can Teach Epidemiologists

– July 11, 2020

“Hysterical, wildly off-the-mark forecasts about COVID-19 will ultimately cause more harm than good, and find their origins in the same set of snags which regularly trip up econometric forecasts. In the epidemiological version, instead of predicting a new Great Depression, they brought an artificial depression, a growing spate of coercive masking initiatives, school closures, and the lockdowns — which quite possibly filled the powderkeg that was ignited by the killing of George Floyd.” ~ Peter C. Earle

Crisis, Healthcare, History, Video

When Will the Madness End?

– July 10, 2020

“We’ve learned throughout this ordeal that despite our technology, our knowledge, our history of building prosperity and peace, we are no smarter than our ancestors and, by some measures, not as smart as our parents and grandparents. The experience with COVID has caused a mass reversion to the superstitions and panics that sporadically defined the human experience of ages past.” ~ Jeffrey A. Tucker

Books, Crisis, Healthcare

HG Wells on the Partnership Between Viruses and Humans

– July 8, 2020

“Let not the billions before us, who battled nature not only with their hands and minds but their immune systems, genetic variations, and other evolutionary adaptations, have lived in vain.” ~ Peter C. Earle