Managed care, quality of care, and patient rights

The growth of managed care has been accompanied by calls for increased government regulation because HMOs and other forms of managed care are seen by the public as more concerned about controlling costs than with protecting the rights of patients to quality care. This paper applies a theory of health care rights and clinical evidence of managed care quality in an analysis of public opinion about managed care. The paper concludes that there is no persuasive evidence that managed care has resulted in a general deterioration in the quality of care and that, with one exception, restrictions imposed by managed care plans are consistent with a theory of health care rights. The paper concludes with the recommendation that public policy should dispense with attempts to fine tune managed care and address an unquestionable violation of health care rights, the failure to guarantee a minimum standard of care to some 43 million Americans.     

当前我国应尽快推出开放式基金

世界上绝大多数国家的基金业都是以开放式基金为主,而我国目前的证券投资基金全部都是封闭式基金,我国已初步具备了设立开放式基金的条件,设立开放式基金,既是迎接“入世”要求,也是我国基金业的发展方向,我国在开放式基金设立初期,既要吸取国外的成功经验,又要结合我国的实际情况,让开放式基金顺利推出并闪亮登场。     

The sooner,the better: The economic impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper estimates the economic impact of the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) implemented by countries in Europe and Central Asia during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis relies on daily electricity consumption, nitrogen dioxide emission and mobility records to trace the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic and calibrate these measures to estimate the magnitude of the economic impact. To address the potential endogeneity in the introduction of NPIs, we instrument their stringency by the extent of a country's social ties to China. The results suggest that the NPIs led to a decline of about 10% in economic activity across the region. On average, countries that implemented non-pharmaceutical interventions in the early stages of the pandemic appear to have better short-term economic outcomes and lower cumulative mortality, compared with countries that imposed non-pharmaceutical interventions during the later stages of the pandemic. Moreover, there is evidence that COVID-19 mortality at the peak of the local outbreak has been lower in countries that acted earlier. In this sense, the results suggest that the sooner non-pharmaceutical interventions are implemented, the better are the economic and health outcomes.     

Why managed care has gone too far

Managed care has not solved employers' problems with rising health care costs; instead, it has created another set of problems, this author maintains. She suggests steps that employers can take to enhance the quality of health care for their employees and prevent further damage from the excesses of managed care.