Interesting links for today

NY Times: Interactive Graphic - Turning a Corner?

Very Awesome

Megan McArdle: Medicare's Mythical Administrative Cost Savings

Key quote: My critics will want me to explain why, then, Europe can do it cheaper. The answer is threefold. First, most European nations have better governance than we do--the American political system is a Public Choice disaster. Second, they pay people less money in a way that's hard to replicate here (and even if it wasn't, would be a one time savings that wouldn't check the rate of growth). Third, we're still driving quite a bit of product innovation. Our messy, organic, wasteful, unfair, irrational system allows experimentation, and they cherry pick the best results. If we stopped doing this, their system would stop looking so good.

Greg Mankiw: Cost versus Efficiency

Key quote: The bottom line: Low administrative costs are not to be confused with high administrative efficiency. In other words, administrators are not necessarily a deadweight loss to the system.

Jonathan Gruber: A Win-Win Approach to Financing Health Care Reform

Key quote: I believe that the most sensible source of financing for universal coverage would come from reducing the expensive, regressive, and inefficient subsidization of employer-sponsored insurance. Scaling back the exclusion would be highly progressive and would have the added benefit of reducing the incentives for overinsurance and excessive health care spending. This win–win solution would ameliorate a fundamental flaw in our current system while raising the revenues required to cover the uninsured.

Richard H. Thaler: Mortgages Made Simpler

Key quote: Some critics contend that behavioral economists have neglected the obvious fact that bureaucrats make errors, too. But this misses the point. After all, wouldn’t you prefer to have a qualified, albeit human, technician inspect your aircraft’s engines rather than do it yourself?

Boston Globe: Healthy examples

Key quote: Over the course of a month, I spoke to just about everybody I could find who might know something about these healthcare systems: Elected officials, industry leaders, scholars - plus, of course, doctors and patients. And sure enough, I heard some complaints.

But in the course of a few dozen lengthy interviews, not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American. And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care.