The Incidental Economist

My family recently purchased a 2021 Toyota Rav4 Prime. As I became familiar with it, and flipped through the owner’s manual a few times, it occurred to me that nowhere in the manual were instructions for how to jump start it.

I did what any normal person would do these days and searched the internet. No instructions there either. (Some for Rav4 hybrids, but not the Prime. Maybe the instructions are the same, but I don’t know! I also found recommendations to never jump start someone else’s car with a Rav4 Prime. Fine, I won’t. But what about jumping mine?)

So, I texted the very friendly and helpful sales agent at Expressway Toyota in Boston who sold me the car and he told me how to do it. To fill the gap in the internet, here are his instructions by video (low res, but good enough). Below that is an image I created that includes all you really need.

Here’s what he’s talking about in a still image:

Please forgive us all for not giving you the life that you so richly deserved, and might well have had.

Below are recent publications from me and my colleagues from Boston University’s Department of Health Law, Policy and Management. You can find all posts in this series here. August 2021 Edition Anderson E, Mohr DC, Regenbogen I, Swamy L, Smith EG, Mourra S, Rinne ST. Influence of Organizational Climate and Clinician Morale on Seclusion and Physical Restraint […]

In this episode, Dr. Natalie Lambert talks with Dr. Aaron Carroll about her research on COVID-19 long haulers, who experience symptoms for weeks or months after their initial diagnosis. They discuss COVID topics that are being overlooked in the media, and why online forums can inform valuable data for health care researchers to consider.   […]

Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease that affects millions of people in the US alone, so there was a lot of excitement about recent news headlines of a drug approved to treat the disease. However, the approval was met with an outcry from several medical experts. In today’s episode, we talk about the data behind the […]

We construct life stories to present ourselves to the world, and the narratives we choose matter. A cancer memoir, like this one, tells a life story. So how does cancer figure in mine? Part of the normative cultural frame for cancer memoirs is that cancer is an enemy. President Nixon declared war on Cancer. The […]

Pregnancy comes with a lot of advice concerning everything from how to determine the sex of the baby to how to ease both pregnancy symptoms and the oft-dreaded task of labor and delivery. Most of these stand on little to no evidence, but some are attached to data. In today’s episode, we examine the quality […]

After decades of growing pains, Medicare Advantage continues to expand no matter the political party of the sitting president, but how much growth and whom that growth most benefits — consumer or insurer — depends on which policy levers that administration pulls.

That’s the subhead of a new piece from me (gated, unfortunately) at the New England Journal of Medicine about the Supreme Court’s decision in California v. Texas. For a taste: In an angry dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, accused the majority of making an “improbable rescue” of a defective law. In […]

This is a guest post by Taylor J. Christensen, M.D. (@taylorjayc). Dr. Christensen is an internal medicine physician and health policy researcher with a background in business strategy and health services research. Since any mystery in the healthcare system intrigues me, I’ve been working on understanding pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) lately. Why did PBMs arise […]