Knowing and Making

Mixed news coming in from Washington - in the 14th minute of a 15 minute vote. On the radio (BBC World Service): 9 votes still needed - 207 yes votes so far cast. On CNN: voting has started. On the NYT : House is voting on the Senate bill. Other votes still to happen. On some random spam site : " Health care reform passes - live video ". Only notable because it has successfully gamed Google News and comes up at the top of the search results. On Yahoo: ' White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs just tweeted: "About 40 staff in Roosevelt  Room with VP to watch the vote - President walked into the room to sustained applause." ' On the radio: applause is being heard... And, it seems: a historic moment, with 219 votes to 210 (some sources reporting 212), the healthcare reform bill has passed. Speculation on the BBC that the Republicans are nailing their campaign flag to the anti-reform mast because they believe the voters don't want this bill....

Tyler at Marginal Revolution has an excellently succinct summary of how politics works in healthcare : ...one needs to signal a more extreme symbolic affirmation with the proper "showing that you care" values than what the other side is doing... This statement is so perfectly borne out by the UK experience since 1997 that there is a kind of beauty to how true it is. Talking of healthcare, the US plan should become a lot cheaper if this trend continues: placebos are becoming more effective. On current trends placebo should be more effective than all current drugs by 2011; by 2013 sugar pills will overtake some common forms of surgery and in 2016, it should no longer be necessary to use Band-Aids or brush your teeth. Fortunately the US does still have some indirect price supports on sugar, or else the pharmaceutical companies would have no way to make profits at all. Derek Thompson asks whether the Sahara could power Europe . It's even better than that: I estimated this w...

While the Americans don't want a British-style healthcare system, it seems that some Brits are very keen on American-style healthcare rhetoric. After Alan Duncan's hilarious outburst we now have Chris Ayres in the Times . Claiming that Obama should abandon his plans to replicate the NHS, in favour of a scheme that "combines the best of both systems". Now anyone who is listening honestly to the debate, or has looked at the healthcare bill being proposed, couldn't possibly think that Obama is proposing a universal, public-funded and public-supplied health sector. If anything, the main criticism of the proposal is it doesn't go far enough towards this goal. The main content is still a public insurance plan - no public ownership of hospitals or provision of services, and no single-payer system. If a British writer (based in the US) can't tell the difference between the US plan and the NHS, despite writing more than one article comparing them, why is he stil...

In a bizarre Art Laffer-like incident today, Alan Duncan reminded us of the good old days when all Tories were mad. In the midst of a number of other infelicities, widely reported in left and right wing newspapers nationwide, Duncan said of the House of Commons: Basically, it's being nationalised. Now I am spoiled by my choice of targets. I have: American economists who think that the government doesn't run Medicare American financial journalists who argue that Stephen Hawking would have been left to die by the NHS if he'd been British (which he, er, is) A British MP who thinks - and is willing to admit - that the House of Commons used to be a private company Republicans must be terrified that, if Obama gets his way, they are going to end up with a publicly owned government. Thank goodness free enterprise still reigns in that branch of the economy.

Dr Nick Sheron of the Alcohol Health Alliance has objected to the government's publication of daily instead of weekly alcohol limits . But his protest shows a failure to understand both behavioural reasons for the advice, and the economics of alcohol consumption. First the behavioural aspect: Dr Sheron says we should go back to using the old weekly limits, which are based on sound research. The 1987 sensible drinking limits, which set the bar at 21 units per week for men and 14 units per week for women, remained in place until 1995. I have no doubt that, as he says, the medical research was based on the idea of weekly limits and not daily. The problem is that this is not a medical issue. It is a behavioural issue. The government's objective in publishing the recommended limits is not to give medical advice or influence doctors. It is to change people's behaviour. It's far easier for people to influence their own behaviour through short-term goals and fast feedback, t...