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Random Critical Analysis
Personal blog · randomcriticalanalysis.com · on HN as rcafdmhealtheconomics
Random Critical Analysis is a personal blog at randomcriticalanalysis.com about health and economics. Since 2018, 51 different Hacker News readers have linked it 82 times, most often “Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) (2020)”. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Critical analysis of topics that interest me.
Most-linked posts?
- Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) (2020)17 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2020-02-02
- Explaining U.S. healthcare costs in about a million charts12 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2018-12-27
- /2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-08-10
- /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-11-24
- A tale of two covariates: Why OWID and company are wrong about US healthcare4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-12-08
- /2017/06/22/no-us-school-funding-is-actually-somewhat-progressive/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-07-15
- US health care spending is not an outlier2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-25
- It’s still not the health care prices “2017 edition” (2020)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-02-13
What Hacker News says?
I know of at least one source arguing that in fact, population health (mainly obesity and gun violence) explain upwards of 70% of the difference in healthcare spending between the US and other developed nations.[1] To me, this seems like the most likely explanation because I believe we have pretty similar diagnostics and treatments to other developed countries, and I don't feel like a British doctor would give me an…
Comment linking /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/
on “DOGE's only public ledger is riddled with mistakes”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) (2020) as a story · 139 points
HN discussionAn interesting rebuttal to the usual complaints about the US healthcare system (no idea how factual it actually is, but it passes my basic sniff tests, but it is a subject I am unfamiliar with): https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/why-conventional-wisdom-o... That said: tying insurance to employment is evil. I’m a New Zealander and our healthcare system certainly has its problems too.
Comment linking /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/
on “Twitter’s mass layoffs have begun”Submitted A tale of two covariates: Why OWID and company are wrong about US healthcare as a story · 72 points
HN discussionIf you look at the actual household income in various countries, as opposed to the GDP, which doesn't always track household income as well for many OECD countries, it turns out that the US has pretty much the healthcare consumption expected for its average household income: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2018/11/19/why-everything... . Based on this analysis, I think the primary issue with US healthcare is the f…
Comment linking /2018/11/19/why-everything-you-know-about-healthcare-is-wrong-in-one-million-charts-a-response-to-noah-smith/
on “Hospital prices are about to go public in the U.S.”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionnot really, US healthcare spending is average for US income. (the problem is the distribution of that income) https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2020/02/13/its-still-not-...
Comment linking /2020/02/13/its-still-not-the-health-care-prices-2017-edition/
on “Z-library founders arrested in Argentina”Submitted A response to my least charitable critics (2020) as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> How do you demonstrate merit in a practical amount of time? I do think standardized tests do a pretty good job. Test mostly on algorithms/tech related questions and you'll mostly find people with interest in these topics. You're right that people who do well on these types of tests may still be terrible people, but it hasn't been my experience that interviews are good at snuffing out terrible people as opposed to…
Comment linking /2016/05/09/my-response-to-the-nytimes-article-on-school-districts-test-scores-and-income/
on “The software industry's greatest sin: hiring”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBefore coming to any conclusions on this topic, I highly suggest reading this extremely in-depth analysis on cross-country healthcare spending.[1] The simple answer is that Americans really do consume significantly more healthcare than Europeans. The most straightforward signature of this is the fact that a much higher proportion of Americans work in the healthcare industry than any other large country. The US also…
Comment linking /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/
on “Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Really? That is news to me, as a dual US|EU (Croatian) citizen, who is culturally American--but currently living in Croatia. Yes, and just like that health policy analyst, I can attest to it. I've read more than enough plan documents, and work with health actuaries every day. > Also, just in case you want to blame this on "lifestyle factors" (which means that this is a public health matter, which the United States…
Comment linking /2017/05/16/the-explanatory-power-of-drugs-car-accidents-and-homicides-on-us-life-expectancy-gaps/
on ““AI promised to revolutionize radiology but so far its failing””Submitted A tale of two covariates: Why OWID and company are wrong about US healthcare as a story · 2 points
HN discussionParent is probably using murder rates because murder is very unlikely to be unevenly enforced, with the implicit implication that these differences extend to other violent crimes (but the data there is muddied by differential enforcement). Here is the strongest presentation of this argument that I've seen: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe... I don't have a well-formed opinion here, but IM…
Comment linking /2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/
on “Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI dislike how often I see justifications for the sources of inadequacies of current systems supposedly shown by comparing different countries to the US. An example of this in the paper is when they state that the US has more expensive healthcare, but yet worse metrics such as life expectancy. As the differences in healthcare systems between the US and these other comparison countries are obvious, they want to clearl…
Comment linking /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/
on “Single-payer healthcare would save $450B and 68k lives a year: study”Submitted US health care spending is not an outlier as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> in which way is america exceptional except insofar as exactly that here business tries to extract as much as value as physically possible Apparently, it's exceptionality comes from high levels of obesity, homicide, car accidents and drug abuse, of which only the last one has any link to businessy nature of healthcare. https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2019/11/07/a-tale-of-two-...
Comment linking /2019/11/07/a-tale-of-two-covariates-why-owid-and-company-are-wrong-about-us-healthcare
on “Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month”Submitted Why conventional wisdom on health care is wrong (a primer) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion>The near-total lack of transparency in healthcare pricing is a key reason we have the highest costs in the world — roughly twice what people in other developed countries pay. Nope. We pay around what you'd expect given our consumption in other areas. See https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2018/11/19/why-everything...
Comment linking /2018/11/19/why-everything-you-know-about-healthcare-is-wrong-in-one-million-charts-a-response-to-noah-smith/
on “Insured price $2,758, cash price $521”Submitted It’s still not the health care prices as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm all for universal and single-payer healthcare, education reform, basic income (negative income tax is the best version of UBI), and so on. But still, QE might be here to stay. It's hard to stay, I know very-very little about these things. (Even compared to - let's say - healthcare costs [see https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/ ].)
Comment linking /
on “The stock market and economy have parted ways”Submitted It’s still not the health care prices “2017 edition” (2020) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere is little evidence to support the "US consumes too much healthcare" narrative and some good evidence that our total healthcare spending is inline with our level of wealth [0]. There is quite a bit of evidence to support the "Prices for equivalent healthcare are significantly higher in the US". [0] https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2018/11/19/why-everything...
Comment linking /2018/11/19/why-everything-you-know-about-healthcare-is-wrong-in-one-million-charts-a-response-to-noah-smith/
on “Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier”Submitted Explaining U.S. healthcare costs in about a million charts as a story · 1 points
HN discussionBut why those nations have lower costs isn't so simple. If you remove all profit and admin overhead from the US system, its still something like $5000/person more expensive than other countries (I think that that was vs Canada). A large component of healthcare cost in the US is simply healthcare use. We are deeply, deeply unhealthy with 75% overweight rates and absurd levels of pre/diabetes, which are the largest co…
Comment linking /2016/09/25/high-us-health-care-spending-is-quite-well-explained-by-its-high-material-standard-of-living/
on “Employer health plans are getting pricier and skimpier”> In 1985, the typical male worker could cover a family of four's major expenditures (housing, health care, transportation, education) on 30 weeks of salary. By 2018 it took 53 weeks. The author has clearly never heard of Baumol's cost disease. The primary reason that households now expend more on housing, healthcare and education is because they expend a significantly smaller fraction of their income on food, elect…
Comment linking /why-conventional-wisdom-on-health-care-is-wrong-a-primer/
on “It takes now 53 weeks salary to earn same as 30 weeks in 1985”https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe...
Comment linking /2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/
on “Black boys don’t need more discipline, they need mentors (2018)”I think this is an excellent analysis with sources: https://randomcriticalanalysis.com/2015/11/16/racial-differe... His conclusion is that on a county-by-county level in the US, race is the strongest predictor of homicide rates, with rates of single-motherhood being next strongest. Poverty is a reasonable predictor, but weaker than these and several others. I read this closely a couple years ago, but only skimmed it…
Comment linking /2015/11/16/racial-differences-in-homicide-rates-are-poorly-explained-by-economics/
on “‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully”
