Posted on 01/06/2015 12:46:38 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON — For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.......
In addition, some ideas that looked good to academia in theory are now causing consternation. In 2009, while Congress was considering the health care legislation, Dr. Alan M. Garber — then a Stanford professor and now the provost of Harvard — led a group of economists who sent an open letter to Mr. Obama endorsing cost-control features of the bill. They praised the Cadillac tax as a way to rein in health costs and premiums.
Dr. Garber, a physician and health economist, has been at the center of the current Harvard debate. He approved the changes in benefits, which were recommended by a committee that included university administrators and experts on health policy.......
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Their chickens are coming home to roost.
--------------
More from Dr. Alan Garber
[May 2014 - notes posted from a talk Dr. Garber gave at the annual conference "Behavioral Economics, Law, and Health Policy."]"......
"...Garber’s talk is focused on the Affordable Care Act, and says that it has two purposes: expand access to care, and reduce the costs of care. The latter is particularly important, given the way healthcare is impinging on the larger United States economy.
Garber says that he wasn’t involved in drafting the ACA, but was involved in other large-scale reform proposals. [You can find his pre-ACA views here.] Garber says that the core features of the ACA (e.g., an individual mandate) are typical of virtually any major reform proposal. But the details matter, and the execution in particular is essential.
According to Garber, as long as you have choice among plans, the first issue to grapple with is adverse selection. The problem is that the sickest individuals will choose the most generous plans. The individuals have private information, not available to the insurers. Avoiding this death spiral was a primary purpose of the ACA.
Garber says that the second major problem has to deal with cost more directly: moral hazard. If a product is subsidized, people will buy more than they otherwise would. As long as individuals are not bearing the full cost, individuals will over-consume. The classic economic solution is to put economic incentives on individuals to change their behaviors. Indeed, this is the primary reason for the growth of high deductible health plans in our economy.
Garber explains how copayments can be effective in reducing consumption, but they may backfire by causing patients to overreact, declining even healthcare that they need. Garber says that because of evidence showing such a phenomenon, most people do not think that traditional cost sharing is the solution now. [I'm not sure I would agree with that reading of the literature; there are still lots of economists that like to focus on the fact that very few studies have shown that cost-sharing has adverse effects on median patients. Here's Swartz's review of the literature.]
Instead, Garber suggests that it may be more sensible to put the financial incentives on the providers instead, and he is citing the RAND study with managed care organizations. That solution, however, raises concerns that it may be too effective, as providers may provide too-little care when that is their incentive.
Garber is transitioning to ask how all this relates to behavioral economics, the topic of this conference. He notes that the penalty attached to the individual mandate in Massachusetts was very small in relation to the cost of the health insurance premium, but it nonetheless caused many people to sign up. Traditional economics cannot explain this. Rather there was a public campaign that made people think that getting insurance is part of what it means to be a good citizen. It is a form of social pressure. [Of course, social pressure can be incorporated into traditional economic models, as it imposes a disutility on those who would instead free ride. But it is not a simple dollar-and-cents calculation, and traditional economics has no explanation as to why individuals should experience that social pressure as a disutility.]
Garber is now discussing physician incentives, and explaining that professional norms and recognition have tended to be more powerful in changing behavior than financial incentives. [Still, there is lots of data that physicians respond to incentives too.]
In closing, Garber is noting that fairly small tweaks in choice architecture – making it easy to do the right thing – can have profound impacts. For example, take a complex disease like diabetes. If you can create therapies that are very easy to follow – unlike taking multiple insulin injections per day — you can get very powerful results. If you make the right thing easier to do, it will be adopted.
Garber says that it is unclear whether the Affordable Care Act will survive the change in presidential administrations [and the assault by the judiciary in cases like Halbig]. But it may have engendered a conversation that is thoughtful about what kind of healthcare and healthcare system we may want.
Be Sociable, Share!" [end]
"Hey!! We didn't mean US!!!"
Right!
Oh no!
Not the Ruling Class!
IF.
American Thinker: The Obamacare soap opera gets better and better "...............................You can't make this up.
Like some of the labor unions, the Harvard faculty is learning that "universal care" is a better speech than governing. It sounds great until you implement it and throw supply and demand into disarray.
In the meantime, that fellow that you see complaining about health care at the next liberal meeting is probably a Harvard college professor. Just walk over, introduce yourself, and say two things:
1) Hope and change.
2) I feel your pain."
Everything effects healthcare. Obamacare is the liberal “gift” - the mechanism that repeatedly will be putting hooks (taxes, regulations) - behavioral triggers into our lives.
How many noticed “the war on sugar” that the MSM emphasised over the holidays? — the new “tobacco” that must be taxed.
“How many noticed “the war on sugar” that the MSM emphasised over the holidays? “
________________________________________
Killjoys!
We’re still eating goodies from my MIL in Northern Quebec! The kids look forward to them every year.
I try to make them...but they’re just not as good as Grandma’s. ;)
I remember my own Babi making all kinds of special bread and dumplings and cookies for Christmas Eve and Christmas.
I’m glad I didn’t see anything about this war on sugar over the holidays. However, my pants are not glad... ;)
Jan 2, 2015 [Via the Chicago Tribune]: Scientific team sounds the alarm on sugar as a source of disease
Jan 3, 2015, UK Telegraph: Sugar can destroy lives and should be taxed like tobacco
Jan 5, 2015, U. of Utah News: Fructose More Toxic than Table Sugar in Mice
"........................Welcome to the brave new world of U.S. health care as reformed by the President and congressional Democrats. It is precisely the opposite of what most Americans wanted from reform. Eight months before Obamacare passed, Gallup conducted a survey in which a majority of the public unequivocally stated that controlling costs was its highest priority. Obamacare is actually increasing costs for both patients and providers, while reducing access for the former. And this is just the beginning. The pain will continue to increase until this malignant tumor is cut out of our health care system."
“.....The complaints are also curious given Harvard faculty’s general support for Obama and his policies.
According to an analysis conducted by Campus Reform in 2012, 585 Harvard faculty donated to presidential candidates that year. Of those, 555 contributed a total of $400,000 to Obama.
Whereas the average plan on the Obamacare marketplace exchanges covers 70 percent of health care costs, Harvard’s mid-tier plan covers 91 percent of expenses.
Under their old plan, Harvard employees paid some of their premiums and out-of-pocket costs were low.
Now, their plan will have an annual deductible of $250 per individual and $750 per family. Faculty will also be required to pay coinsurance for hospitalization, surgery and some diagnostic tests.
A doctor’s office visit will run $20, and patients will be required to pay 10 percent of health care costs up to the $1,500 out-of-pocket limit.
All together, the cost to Harvard faculty are a fraction of what individuals in most other jobs and in the marketplace are required to pay.”
I would give my left one to have the health plan at the cost these jokers are complaining about.
From the Slimes article: “Employees will now pay deductibles and a share of the costs, known as coinsurance, for hospitalization, surgery and certain advanced diagnostic tests. The plan has an annual deductible of $250 per individual and $750 for a family. For a doctor’s office visit, the charge is $20. For most other services, patients will pay 10 percent of the cost until they reach the out-of-pocket limit of $1,500 for an individual and $4,500 for a family.
Previously, Harvard employees paid a portion of insurance premiums and had low out-of-pocket costs when they received care.”
And they are outraged? $250 deductible? $20 copay for a doctor visit? 10% copay for services? Max out of pocket $1500/$4500? Really? And they are outraged?
Damned elitist pukes... Choke on your ivy.
It didn’t take the faculty long to come up with that meme that having co-pays is “taxing the sick” did it? And these are people who are supposed to teach out youth critical thinking?
“Choke on your ivy.”
Posion ivy - and only if they are choking because it is around their necks. The ideas they come up with are destroying our nation - Treason.
Pitchforks, Torches, Tar, & Feathers, all are tools to run undesirable Communist out of town. Is there an Ivy League school that isn’t a Marxist/Socialist Training Center?
Yep, Reality is a bitch. . .
You forgot rails.
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