20 de desembre 2013

Health systems taxonomy

Five types of OECD healthcare systems: Empirical results of adeductive classification

Once upon a time there were two types of health systems: Beveridge and Bismark based. Social Health Insurance vs National Health Service. This was an easy categorisation. Now, things are much more difficult to classify. Have a look at Health Policy and you'll find an update:
We argue that there is a hierarchical relationship between the three dimensions, led by regulation, followed by financing and finally service provision, where the superior dimension restricts the nature of the subordinate dimensions. This hierarchy rule limits the number of theoretically plausible types to ten. To test our argument, we classify 30 OECD healthcare systems, mainly using OECD Health Data and WHO country reports. The classification results in five system types: the National Health Service, the National Health Insurance, the Social Health Insurance, the Etatist Social Health Insurance, and the Private Health System.
Is there anybody available to guess where we are?. 

13 de desembre 2013

We the people

A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before

Cass R. Sunstein is a distinguished professor of Law at Harvard. For economists he is well known for his book with R. Tahler on "Nudge". Today I would like to reproduce several statements of his 2009 book: A Constitution of Many Minds: Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before. Just for those that consider that law should constraint people's expectations:
I mean to identify and explore three approaches to the founding document: traditionalism, populism, and cosmopolitanism.We shall see that in all three contexts, what is at work is a many minds argument–an argument that if many people think something, their view is entitled to consideration and respect.
Traditionalists insist that if members of a society have long accepted a certain practice, courts should be reluctant to disturb that practice. Some traditionalists go further, urging that even po-litical majority should respect longhstanding practices. Populists believe that if most people believe a certain fact or accept a certain value, judges should show a degree of humility—and respect their view in the face of reasonable doubt. Some populists think that if many people be-lieve something, they are probably right, and elected representatives should defer to them too.Cosmopolitans believe that if many nations, or many democratic nations, reject a practice, or accept a practice, the United States Supreme Court should pay respectful attention. Some cos-mopolitanians believe that if most nations, or most democratic nations, do something, other nations should probably fall in line with them.
Of course the three positions are different, and it is possible to accept one while rejecting the other two. But the structure of the central argument is identical in all three contexts. Nothing in the Constitution itself rules out any of the three approaches that I shall be ex-ploring. The Constitution does not set out the instructions for its own interpretation, and many approaches fall within the domain of the permissible. But traditionalism, populism, and cos-mopolitanism all run into serious obstacles. In the end, much of my argument will therefore be negative and critical. I will try to show why each approach has intuitive appeal – but also why each of them faces powerful objections.
Today is a day to reflect on such issues. Laws are created after a political process, popular sovereignity is above them. I wanted just to reflect on that in a historic day.

11 de desembre 2013

It's the budget, stupid

Last week the proposal of health budget was submitted to the Parliament. The expected expenditure will be 1.095 € a level achieved 9 years before (2005) in nominal terms (if we consider the figure in real terms, there is an additional 20% less due to CPI -unfortunately no health CPI available). These are the figures, and this is the reality for those that talk about the end of recession. Next year, we are going to spend actually 20% less in publicly funded health care of what we spent in 2005. If somebody had predicted such trend I'm sure that would be considered a fool.
Now I would like you to suggest you an exercise. Estimate how many years it will take to return to 1.300 € (the peak of 2010). For sure, it will take many, many, many years.
Public Expenditure on health care has been reduced, mostly through salaries.This is a partial measure that has a limit. The review of regulatory and organizational structures is the key issue that is mostly forgotten.

PS. No complains about budget cuts, it's just the reality, we are poorer than before. The option is to work in a different direction, more of the same will get the same result.