May 2023 Mercatus on Healthcare

Updates on healthcare research and commentary from the Mercatus Center's Open Health Project

This month, it’s all hands on deck on Capitol Hill as lawmakers scramble to raise the debt ceiling by June 1, as requested by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Raising the debt ceiling is necessary in the immediate term. But looking to the future, we need to put the main drivers of debt growth — Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — on a sustainable path. Our scholars aim to contribute to this conversation through their research on the Medicaid program’s shortcomings and opportunities for reform.

Medicaid and Third-Party Payers

Denying Medicaid Crowd-Out Doesn’t Make It Go Away (blog post)

Liam Sigaud discusses a White House report that claims that Medicaid enrollment gains have not been offset by a decrease in private insurance coverage. He points out that the research literature says otherwise.

How Middlemen Undermine Patient-Centered Care (blog post)

Elise Amez-Droz discusses a recent scientific study that found that doctors don’t make use of patient feedback in their clinical work. She argues that this state of affairs is due to muddled incentives inherent to the third-party payer system.

Public Health and COVID-19

Faster Vaccine Development Could Save Lives, But Would People Trust It? (blog post)

Markus Bjoerkheim and Milica Manojlovic draw upon their (Markus) research to analyze whether the health benefits of faster vaccine development, approval and distribution would be offset by distrust in the vaccine’s quality due to speed. They conclude that faster approval is good policy.

LA’s indoor vaccine mandate was supposed to boost vaccination rates and reduce COVID-19 cases. It didn’t. (op-ed)

Vitor Melo and Liam Sigaud highlight the effects of city-level indoor vaccine mandates on COVID cases and deaths in Los Angeles, as analyzed by Vitor in his recent research.

Healthcare Isn’t the Place to Solve All Problems (blog post)

Kofi Ampaabeng questions the merits of requiring medical professionals to pursue activities that amount to social work, as recently demanded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.