Podcasts I’m Listening To – Week of 4/15 – 4/26

Show	Podcast
And Justice For All	We The People Stories
Senator George McGovern on Abraham Lincoln	We The People Stories
Using Tiny Particles To Answer Giant Questions	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
It’s All Politics April 9 2009	NPR: It’s All Politics Podcast
NYT: Science Times for 4/07/2009	Science Times
CIA Interrogation Memos, Possible U.S.-Cuba Talks Top Week’s News	NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS
EPA Finding Opens Door to Regulating Greenhouse Gases	NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS
Newly-released Memos Detail Harsh CIA Interrogation Tactics	NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS
Fighting America’s ‘Financial Oligarchy’	NPR: Fresh Air Podcast
Kristin Chenoweth Is ‘A Little Bit Wicked’	NPR: Fresh Air Podcast
NPR: 04-17-2009 Fresh Air	NPR: Fresh Air Podcast
‘Hey I’m Dead!’ The Story Of The Very Lively Ant	NPR: Hmmm…. Krulwich on Science Podcast
#354: Mistakes Were Made	This American Life
#378: This I Used to Believe	This American Life
The American Presidency	We The People Stories
From Revolution to Evolution	We The People Stories
The Future of the Republican Party	We The People Stories
Legacy of 1808: Deconstructing Reconstruction	We The People Stories
The NAACP Centennial	We The People Stories
Better Brewing Through Synthetic Biology	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Green DIY Projects To Reduce, Reuse, Recycle	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Harnessing Nanoparticles For Targeted Cancer Treatment	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Is Missile Defense Ready For Prime Time?	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Skunked? Tomato Juice Is Not The Answer	NPR: Science Friday Podcast
Shields, Brooks Mull Torture Memos, Obama’s Leadership	Shields and Brooks | NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Podcast | PBS

Filed under: Personal Posts, Fun, Podcasts

The Human Analog to a Pet or a Public Resource?

Uwe Reinhardt has a piece on the Economix blog arguing for universal coverage and public financing of children’s health insurance through age 22.  Dr. Reinhardt is a professor of economics at Princeton University and a leading health policy expert.

What’s most notable about his post is his provocative start.  He asks the question:  do we in the United States view children as the “human analogs of pets … or…, as most European and Asians, as precious national treasures.”  Kind of  a disturbing question, when you think about it.  What’s he getting at?

He believes that answering this question “informs the nation’s health policy.”

If …the human analog of their parents’ pets, then … children’s health care is primarily the parents’ financial responsibility [and]…it is just and proper that, of two households with identical incomes, the one with children will have substantially less discretionary income …than does the childless household.  [I]f …national treasures — and the nation’s economic future — then …health care of children [is] the financial responsibility of society as a whole, just as is the financing of public elementary and secondary education.

Aside from remarking about S-chip and the 9 million children that are estimated to be uninsured, he also observes that Americans “seem to impute different social values to the health care of children, depending on their socioeconomic status, even if they have insurance.”  In other words, there can be a hundred dollar or more swing in basic primary care reimbursement depending whether a child is insured through private payors or public public programs.  And this price signal has real effects – many physicians, including many in Reinhardt’s New Jersey, will simply refuse to see Medicaid patients.

He then goes on to argue that a system similar to our public school system — but with vouchers for parents who would opt out of the public system — should be established for all American children under 22:

The purchasing function under this public program, that is organizing and managing care, could be delegated to private for-profit or nonprofit insurers, as in Medicaid Managed Care. Private insurers would then compete over the quality of their disease-management programs, not through judicious risk selection…[T]he fees paid providers under the public program would be set equal to the average of fees paid by the largest two or three private insurers in the state, lest the professional work of physicians caring for poor children continue to be relatively undervalued.

I think this is interesting reading in light of the McKinsey Study that I posted on recently.  If suboptimal health care is a contributing factor to sub-standard educational attainment of differing racial groups or social/economic classes in the United States, how much does our current health care financing system contribute?  How much, if any, lost GDP opportunity are we leaving on the table due to suboptimal financing of health care for children K-12?   If, as Dr. Reinhardt argues, health care for this cohort should be a public good, what’s the real GDP return on investment to Dr. Reinhardt’s program?  To me, asking and answering these questions are critically important to advance the policy debate.

via Seriously, What Is a Child? – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: Bioethics, Health Law, Reform, Health, Health Law, Health Reform, LinkedIn