Brad Wright, PhD

We all know them. We see them on TV. We read about them in the paper. And, with the explosion of social media, you hear about it from people you know. If you have a Facebook account with a sizable enough network of friends, you’ve probably seen at least one negative comment about vaccines. On one end of the spectrum, there are the seemingly innocent people who claim that they ...

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While there are plenty of valid reasons to be skeptical about the Affordable Care Act, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, it’s hard to argue that imposing an individual mandate to purchase insurance won’t result in more people obtaining coverage. According to the results of a recent survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that’s precisely what’s happened. Based on results of the National ...

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As of September 2, CVS -- the ubiquitous pharmacy/convenience store -- has stopped selling tobacco products, including both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. This is a bold move from the retailer, which is also planning to rebrand itself as “CVS Health” to emphasize its place in the health care delivery chain. I personally applaud the decision, because there are simply no benefits to tobacco use in any form. And it’s also ...

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Luxury goods are items that people purchase in disproportionately greater amounts as their income increases. That’s how economists think of them anyway. But for the average American, a luxury good means something else. We tend to think of luxury goods being things like designer clothing, luxury cars, and high-end restaurants. Our minds fill with images of Gucci, Burberry, and Luis Vuitton, or Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Ferrari. One thing is clear to ...

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Most people, regardless of their political leaning, can agree that the market for health care in the United States isn’t really working well. Take one step further, though, and disagreement rapidly ensues. On the left, the common understanding is that a market failure has occurred, and that the proper thing to do is have government intervene to correct that failure -- usually by expanding public insurance programs, subsidizing private insurance, and ...

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A primary criticism of the Affordable Care Act is that it creates incentives for employers to hire fewer full-time employees. One of the House’s attempts to repeal the ACA even referenced it as the “job-killing healthcare law.” It’s true that there are some provisions in the ACA that employers may exploit in order to minimize the cost of doing business. At the same time, it’s also true that the ACA protects ...

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The Affordable Care Act was enacted all the way back in 2010. But, even before then, critics were asserting that this new law would more or less destroy the American economy, insert Uncle Sam squarely between patients and providers, and initiate the end of freedom as it ushered in socialized medicine. That was nearly 4 years -- and 40 repeal attempts -- ago, and yet, the sky remains intact above ...

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In recent months, news reports focused on the number of new enrollees as a key test of the law. Although the troubled performance of the Healthcare.gov website during October and November delayed enrollment for hundreds of thousands of potential subscribers, Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats hailed a surge in enrollment at the end of the year as proof that the law would fulfill its promise of providing affordable coverage to ...

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The president, by his own admission, did “fumble the ball” on the rollout of the major elements of health reform implementation. Not only is Healthcare.gov not functioning as it should, but people in the individual market are having their health insurance coverage cancelled–despite repeated assurances that if they liked their current coverage, they could keep it. While that is absolutely a problem, it needs to be put into perspective. For ...

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