“If health economists were in charge of the health system, not a lot would change,” which tells you just about all you need to know about most health economists in the United States. @afrakt ow.ly/bJO030qj6KX
@afrakt More constructively...the responses to this survey's normative questions confirm something that I’ve observed anecdatally: there is a mountainous structural ideological-bias problem in #HealthPolicy.
cc: @KosaliSimon, @cawley_john
cc: @KosaliSimon, @cawley_john
@afrakt @KosaliSimon @cawley_john The health policy professions skew left, because federal and state health policy skew left; thus the set of individuals who select into these professions skews toward those whose ideas concern *how* government should allocate resources/regulate rather than *whether* it should.
@afrakt @KosaliSimon @cawley_john Since the majority and the elites within these professions skew left, it is harder both to attract free-market advocates to the professions and for free-market advocates to advance within the professions.
@afrakt @KosaliSimon @cawley_john Free-market advocates see the results, get the message that health policy isn’t for them, the cycle repeats itself -- and health-policy elites take the heavy and persistent skew in these professions as evidence that their ideas and values are correct.
@afrakt @KosaliSimon @cawley_john I submit this describes not just health economics but health policy in the academy, non-profits & even politics. It explains why conservative Republicans don’t do health care, why Rs who do health care aren’t conservatives, and why #ObamaCare came from the @Heritage Foundation.
@afrakt It would be neat if next time around Mike, @Cawley_John, and @KosaliSimon could include a question or two on how health economists self-identify ideologically. Fin. #CatoHealth
