Equity of US health care financing

This from Sam Metz who has reviewed this and whose opinion I trust.

It investigates a phenomenon that I did not entirely appreciate before – the proportion of income devoted to healthcare across economic classes. One could use these data to demonstrate the value of tax-based financing of healthcare rather than premium-based financing. Premiums do not vary by income and in fact probably are regressive: more expensive for low-income earners. Premium subsidies can correct that burden to neutral, as demonstrated here. But only taxes can be made progressive: more expensive for high-income earners. It’s a good case for single-payer rather than private insurance.

Michael Rohwer
Adopting Agile Principles in Health Care

Here we have an important blog, published on August 15, 2019, that describes agile software development principles and their application in healthcare.

Agile is a methodology that has dramatically improved software development. It delivers better software faster using incremental steps that are continually realigned with actual customer need.

The alternative is for technology experts to create a product based on an initial concept and their understanding of what the product is supposed to do. Of course, the design is optimized for the technology and the developers’ understanding. Developers are not experts in the customer’s business so the end product can easily not be useful at all.

Healthcare is an authority-based top-down hierarchical control system. A little more agility and attention to the needs of the patient, as opposed to the ever-increasing needs of the healthcare system, would be welcome.

Michael Rohwer