Over at McArdle's digs, Henke takes a look at this piece on the perverse incentives created by the FDA.

Jon—who is, BTW, my blog-nephew, and far more successful than his Aunt Joy—suggests:

There's a research project in this for some enterprising investigator.

• Find out how many medical treatments and procedures have been declined by health insurance companies and health care providers over the past 5 years.

• Contrast that with the potential medicines, procedures and devices that have been rejected, delayed or buried in regulatory tape, and the likely treatments and procedures those would have provided.

I would speculate that you'll find the unintended consequences of FDA regulations have had a far larger impact than the cumulative declined treatments of the health care industry.

Well, yeah. But there is, as the original article points out, a mindset that can't quite make the leap of faith that might suggest we could make progress in biotech as rapidly as in computing and electronics. The only factor that can make inroads against the socialist-medicine mindset has to do with anti-aging technology that is "skin deep": because insurance isn't expected to cover cosmetic surgeries, these are more likely to be innovative than other types of medicine.

But even these often have to clear one major roadblock, and that is the FDA.

Vaguely related: I sometimes wonder how the history of health would have been different if it weren't for the Dalkon Shield. Did the pendulum swing too far in the other direction? Is that how we got into this fix?

(The longevity issue—and Henke's take thereon—got a 'Lanche yesterday.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Over the past five years I've run the gamut from excellent entertainment-industry health insurance . . . to no insurance . . . to amazingly sucky, exorbitant coverage that costs us thousands more a year than it "really" costs, because we have to continue A the H's production company in order to qualify for it, when we'd really like to let that go and slash our overhead.

And most of my friends are freelancers; I suspect they, like me, would be thrilled to get something decent for a semi-reasonable cost that wouldn't be pulled out from under them every time they changed jobs or careers.

I realize that a lot of people "expect" employers to pay for health care, but (1) a that number will decrease as people no longer "expect" that they'll necessarily be working staff jobs, and (2) a lot of people, given the choice by their companies, would prefer to take the cash versus the benefits. Or some of the cash, versus the benefits. Or having the flexibility to work anywhere they want to, rather than being "married" to one company or another due to some "pre-existing condition."

I remember sitting in my publisher's office in 1990 when I was living on $16,000 a year in West Los Angeles, with a commute to Burbank and a diet that consisted largely of macaroni and cheese.

This publisher was trying to convince me that, at the age of 28, I should purchase health insurance through the company. The problem was that it would have cost me a lot of money that I simply didn't have.

But of course my publisher thought I should be covered. He didn't want this enough to pay his staffers salaries we could actually live on, but he wanted it. Sort of. At least, he wanted to lecture me endlessly on the point while I was scrambling to make his deadlines.

At some point I just told him that I'd gotten insurance through one of my parents. He knew I was lying, but what could he do?

Save me the paternalism. Just give me the cash.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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