The health care debate has been very vigorous, both in the country and on this website. The Right claims the US has the best health care system in the world. This belief is undoubtedly due to the very low government involvement in US health care system. More government involvement or at least more restrictive... »

This week we’ll briefly revisit the Cancer Survival Rate study. We’re doing this in preparation for an article next week that will present a comprehensive look at all the measures discussed to date of the effectiveness of the US health care system. But first, let’s re-cap the earlier article. A study was recently published... »

An article that’s almost 2 years old has resurfaced recently (link, link, link) that ranks the US as last in preventable deaths among 19 industrialized countries. Most coverage of this story simply cites the statistics without pictures. Last place seems pretty bad, but as we’ve discussed earlier, someone always has to be in last... »

On Monday October 12 Elinor Ostrom was one of 2 winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics. The Wall Street Journal ran a brief article on both winners and cited her work as: Ms. Ostrom’s work challenged the view that when people share a finite resource, they will end up destroying it — what... »

How experts can convey their knowledge to the lay public in a convincing way without boring them is one of the central questions on this website. We’ve discussed this issue in the past here and here, but it’s refreshing to see this issue addressed in other ways. This fall there are 2 TV shows... »

There’s been a new talking point in the health care debate in the US; the cancer survival rate. Many bloggers (site, site, site, and site) and research institutes have discussed the results of a 2007 article in the medical journal Lancet Oncology that compared cancer survival rates in several different countries. The blogs and... »