I’ll Be on Marketplace Tonight
Nancy Marshall Genzer is doing a story for Marketplace tonight on the repeal of insurers’ exemption of certain federal antitrust law (McCarran-Ferguson). She claims she’ll be able to extract something sensible from the interview we just did. If so, I’ll be on the air. Check online for local air times.
Background reading: The recent Kaiser Health News piece by me and Ian.
New Here? How to Catch Up?
A few recent interactions have left me with the impression that there are quite a few newer readers of this blog who are extrapolating from recent posts my position on many things. Judging the whole from a few small parts is a normal human survival skill. We make snap judgments all the time, usually without even recognizing that we’re doing it. But that reflexive intuition can be wrong.
Curiously, one of my own limitations is that I resist generalizations too strongly. It isn’t so much that I don’t generalize, it is that I am hesitant to act upon generalizations. How do I know they’re true? If my assumptions are based on scant data they are likely to be wrong. It’s OK to hold incorrect ideas in one’s head. I prefer to treat them as working hypotheses to be tested, not as truth. But this does leave me in the position of examining trees while most others have already found their way out of the forest.
Question is: if you are new here and really do want an evidence-based way to measure the content of this blog what should you do? Very few of us have time to read 400+ posts (that’s about 200,000 words). Well, since I’ve claimed to be an evidence-based thinker, what would I do? How would I find a subset of posts that better represent the whole than the most recent?
Short of my developing an index of links back to key ideas and opinions (which I could do but won’t for lack of time), the next best thing might be to take a look at the Selected Citations page. That page lists and links to, in reverse chronological order, media reports and blog posts of significance that cite this blog or quote one of its authors. Since it links to the work of others who then link back to something here, each entry is a double-hop away from something somebody (who others think important) thought significant on this site. Doing that double-hopping one would land on some of the, arguably, more important posts at The Incidental Economist.
For example, Andrew Sullivan cited the following posts:
- On health care cost control in general: Health Reform Debate 2.0
- On cutting Medicare costs: a post on evidence of Medicare savings
- On the value of increased Medicare Advantage spending: 14 cents on the dollar
- On incentives of health insurance: health incentive plans
- On insurer antitrust exemption: a post on that by me and Ian
- On some things I like about health care reform: baby steps
- On the insurance-mortality connection: McWilliams and me
That’s just Sullivan. One can play the same game with others. Or, if you really want to know what I think about something, just ask. Put it in a comment to a post, and if I, a co-, or guest-blogger has written about it I’ll point you to it. If nobody’s written on it and it interests me, I’ll put it in my queue.
But please don’t just assume that because I cited Ezra Klein a bunch last week (did I?) or said something favorable about health care reform that I agree with Klein on all things or believe everything will be perfect after reform passes (if it does). My thinking is far more nuanced than that.
WordPress Plug-In Bleg
This blog has multiple bloggers. Sometimes we want to share drafts of posts with each other or co-author posts. As far as I can tell there is no elegant way to do this other than (a) working in Word (or similar) and sharing files or (b) sharing passwords to the WP admin tool. If true, that’s lame. There should be a way for an administrator to set privileges on a draft (not yet published) post so other authors on the blog can be permitted to see it or edit it.
My bleg is: is there a plug-in that makes this happen? I’ve searched but not found one. Anybody know?
My follow-up bleg is: if such a plug-in doesn’t exist, can one of the smart geeks I know and trust (you know who you are) put it on their list of stuff to build? If you do so and it works well I promise to tell the world how wonderful it is and how smart you are.
Steve Pizer, Co-Blogger
I’m pleased to announce that Steve Pizer has joined The Incidental Economist’s team of bloggers. Steve is a health economist with the Department of Veterans Affairs and an Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at Boston University’s School of Public Health.
Regular readers already know him. He has authored a few guest posts and some collaborative posts with me. I know Steve very well, having worked with him for over a decade. He and I have teamed up on dozens of research projects and co-authored numerous academic publications. Also, he has been contributing unofficially to The Incidental Economist from the beginning as an adviser, sounding board, and occasional instigator of memes I might not have otherwise touched (devilish, no?).
It may seem redundant to have two health economists blogging here. But Steve’s focus will likely be different from mine, and his posts will be less frequent. For example, he has a comparative advantage in politics, in which he has some experience. He also has different personal interests and life experience. Since we already work so well professionally I am confident we’ll work well as co-bloggers too.
Welcome Steve. Blog away!
(By the way, those of you who subscribe by e-mail will now have an even harder time knowing whose post is whose. E-mailed blog posts don’t contain a by-line, a limitation of the tool. If you want to know who has written what, come to the site itself or do yourself a really big favor and use Google Reader and subscribe via RSS feed.)
Housekeeping Note
This weekend I’m moving this blog to a new web hosting account. I only vaguely know what that even means. But, rest assured, I’ve got an experienced adviser to talk me through it. In fact, it’s TFB. He’s kindly kept me under his wing at his host account since this blog began. Now we’re parting ways <sniff>.
Actually, it’s for a happy reason. Our combined blog traffic is overwhelming the permitted bandwidth for his account. When I have my own both our sites will run better.
If things work right, you should not notice a thing. You’ll know that the switch has been successfully made when I post a very silly piece early next week. That will serve as a test.
Programming Note
With another post by McArdle the insurance-mortality debate continues and may do so for some time. If you are interested in it and this blog has been your sole source for references to the contributions of others (Klein, McArdle, Drum, etc.) then you should take some action. I’m not going to continue to go post-for-post with the other bloggers on this. I’ve already spoken my mind on the matter, and I’ve facilitated the blog version of a first-class literature review (link to relevant posts). From here on out it would just be correcting folks’ (sometimes willful) misunderstandings and repeating myself. I’ve got better things to do.
Therefore, if you want to keep up with this one then either (a) subscribe to the blogs of others involved or (b) subscribe to my News & Links feed (described on my Subscribe page and visible in the far right sidebar). As I see things of relevance to this topic I will enter them into that feed.
This is not to say with certainty I will not post on this again. I’m just not committing to participate in every round. After all, there is vastly more to health reform, health economics, and health policy than this issue. It’s gotten far more attention than it deserves already.
Buzz Me
Google launched Buzz, which has been described as its version of Facebook. You can find me in Buzz and follow my blog posts and News & Links feed there (*). I still think RSS in Google Reader is way better. But to each his/her own. Buzz me if you like.
(*) If you don’t know what I’m talking about, see my Subscribe page.
Good Comments. Keep It Coming
I’ve noticed an uptick in the quantity and quality of comments. That’s great! The most important difference between a public blog and a secret diary is that the former invites comments, either directly on the site or on other blogs. If I didn’t want reactions I wouldn’t muse publicly.
Keep it coming. If you’ve never commented, give it a try (do it anonymously if you wish). If you’ve commented on something already, thank you. I read every one and respond to many. My hope is that someday the volume of comments is so large I can’t keep up. That will be one indication this blog is making a meaningful (if only brief) difference in people’s lives.
(And no, I do not have a secret diary.)
Sometimes You Need a Blunt Object
Every so often I stumble on a blog with some decent content–entertaining or informative or both. Blunt Object is the one I found most recently (discovered when the blogger linked to my posts). Some Blunt Object posts on health care reform include thoughts similar to my own, except with more cursing. Give it a try.
My only beef is that I can’t find a way to contact the author except by leaving a comment. That’s too bad because I’d like to exchange e-mail. So, if Mr. Blunt Object guy/gal wants to offer a way to communicate I would. Up to him/her.
2009 Blog Revenue Donated to Haiti Relief
A minuscule trickle of money flows my way from this blog’s Google AdWords and Amazon.com book referrals. In 2009, the revenue from those sources was about $100.
Were this blog a corporation it would be not-for-profit because my policy is to donate every dollar above the small blog operating cost to charity. I don’t reserve any revenue as compensation for the hours (and hours and hours) I put into the blog. What I do here is either related to my work, for which I’m already paid, or is recreation.
In response to the crisis in Haiti, this year’s charity is the Partners in Health Stand with Haiti campaign. Partners in Health is a Boston based non-profit organization dedicated “to care for our patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease in their communities, and to share lessons learned around the world,” including in Haiti.
The direct link to the Partners in Health Stand with Haiti Campaign is this.
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