Crisis? What Crisis?

An article from the New York Times discusses differences in health outcomes between the U.S. and other rich countries. (See here.) What is the underlying argument of the article? Does it provide clues as to how research should be done?

Why Health Care Will Never Be Equal

Greg Mankiw's column in the New York Times business section on Sunday deals with health care and the costs of new procedures. Scarcity is a key element in his article (get here.) Read the article. How will universal coverage and the costliness of new procedures be reconciled? What are some ways they can be reconciled and who gains and who loses by these different options?

Health care proposal

There is a new proposal for health care legislation put out by Sen. Baucus. An article on the bill is available on my other blog--see here. Check it out and make comments on this blog about economic issues such as scarcity.

Health Care--President Obama's Speech

As noted on the first day of class, a key starting point for economics is the concept of scarcity. All goods and resources are scarce relative to human wants. President Obama is speaking before Congress at 8:00 this evening about health care reform. Watch his presentation. How does he handle and discuss scarcity as applied to health care? How does he propose treating scarcity with respect to health care? Will his approach be effective? Why or why not? (Also--think about alternative ways to account for scarcity.)