Blog Roll: Healthcare

 

Sep 23, 2026 Elizabeth Holmes to Transfer to Halfway House in August 2027 The founder of the blood-testing start-up Theranos was sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud and had been serving time at a minimum-security federal prison in Texas. She was convicted of fraud in 2022 and sentenced to 11 years behind bars.

How well is the US Healthcare System being managed? Google AI Reports:

 

“...the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” Marx’s famous formulation in The Communist Manifesto.

Understanding Society+1

The PBS video (above) plays an interview with a Primary Care Physician explaining (1) why US Healthcare is so expensive and (2) why nothing is going to be done about it ("...the system is designed to make money off illness..." and it makes a lot of money).

Here is my Directed Graph summary of a chatGPT dialog on Healthcare Reform:

and

Posts

• Policy Wedges and State-Space Simulation Models If ever there was any political will, there is a way to control the US Healthcare System.
• US Healthcare Expenditures: Three Futures There is no political will for keeping Health expenditures in line with growth in the US or the World Economy.
• USL20HC Healthcare Forecasts The possibility of reform looks very bleak.
• A Simple Model of the US Healthcare System It will take direct intervention in Prices and Hospital Consolidation to control growth of the system.
• Healthcare, Austerity, Hardship and Debt What will happen if the US Political System enters growth-and-collapse mode?

Notes

Questions

1. What is the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate? Why didn't it work (the "Doc Fix")?
2. What does the history of attempts to control US Healthcare say about the possibility of Medical Cybernetics?

Readings

Pasdirtz (2007) Controlling the US Healthcare System with Policy Wedges Springer Health.

Google AI Summary

George W. Pasdirtz’s 2007 paper “Controlling the U.S. Health Care System with Policy Wedges” introduced a state-space modeling approach to address the long-term growth of the U.S. health care sector, which has historically expanded faster than the economy PubMed+1.

Core Methodology

Pasdirtz built two state-space models:

• U.S. economy model (1950–1999)

• U.S. health care system model (1950–1999)

The economy model’s output served as a reference input to control the health care model’s growth, allowing simulation of a “controlled” scenario where health care growth matched economic growth PubMed+1.

The “Policy Wedges” Concept

A policy wedge is a targeted intervention that shifts the growth path of the health care system toward the economy’s growth rate. These wedges are measurable, policy levers—changes in investment, pricing, or service delivery—that can slow health care growth without eliminating care macropolicyspace.blogspot.com+1.

Key Findings from Simulations

To align health care growth with the economy over the late 20th century, Pasdirtz’s model suggested:

• 13% reduction in capital expenditure

• 15% reduction in drug prices

• 32% reduction in physician service prices PubMed+1

These reductions would have brought health care spending as a share of GDP from 3.4% in 1950 to nearly 14% in 1999 back in line with economic growth PubMed.

Application to Universal Health Care

Pasdirtz also applied the framework to universal health care design:

• Use planning and economic incentives rather than over-engineering benefits

• Avoid centralized, command-and-control approaches

• Balance coverage and cost control through targeted interventions macropolicyspace.blogspot.com+1
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Significance

The “policy wedges” approach offers a quantitative, simulation-based roadmap for:

• Cost containment in health care

• Universal coverage design

• Data-driven policy-making that avoids ad hoc or politically charged reforms macropolicyspace.blogspot.com+1

In short, Pasdirtz’s framework provides a macroeconomic modeling tool to test counterfactual outcomes and design policies that align health care growth with economic growth, with practical implications for both cost control and universal coverage.

Blog Roll: Canada

Aug 25, 2026 Canda-US Trade Talks Collapse the United States offered Canada what it said was the best deal of any country, what Canada had to give up in exchange was seen as unthinkable.

Aug 24, 2026 Tariffs Price Canadian firms Out of US Market The 50 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on Canadian exports to the United States will make it impossible for many Canadian companies to continue to sell to the U.S. market, economists say.

Aug 22, 2026 Waking Up to an Escalating Canada-US Trade War The two countries are locked in a potentially devastating tariff war after last-minute demands ended talks in Washington late Friday night.

 

ChatGPT ranks Canada's Economic Problems as follows:

However, if Canada is approaching a Steady-State Economy, these interrelated problems are part of the structural change.

You can run the CA_L20 Model, the NAL20 Model and the ULS203 Model on my Google site using R-code. These three models are either stable (or very close to stability) and will reach a Steady-State Economy after 2100.

Questions

1. If Canada becomes a Steady-State Economy, what new problems will it face? What problems will go away?
2. Are there any possible benefits for Canada of a Trade War with the US?

Posts

• World System (1950-2000+): The Economy of Canada What effects do you think the US-Canada Trade War will have?
• Trump Takes the US on a Random Walk  Fighting with Allies is an attempt to distract from Trump's many legal problems.
• Globalization and Trump Tariffs The Global World-System is collapsing and Trump thinks (?) he can circle the wagons.
• Eight Futures for Canada  The best Geopolitical future for Canada is to become a Steady-State Economy. Alignment with the US puts the country in growth-and-collapse mode.
• Geopolitical Linkages: Canada, Mexico and the US. Trump bullying will bring Canada and Mexico closer together.
• Canada backs out of the Kyoto Protocol  CO2 emissions in Canada do not look under control.
• How Canada Avoided the Financial Bubble A controlled banking system!

Notes

• The Economy of Canada an advanced and diversified mixed economy. The nation relies upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. As of 2026, it is the eleventh-largest in the world in nominal terms. Its GDP per capita in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms ranks third among G7 countries.
• The Politics of Canada The political system functions within a framework of parliamentary democracy and a federal system with strong democratic traditions. Canada is a constitutional monarchy where the monarch is the ceremonial head of state.
• The History of Canada The period from the arrival of the Paleo-Indians to North America thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands encompassing present-day Canada have been inhabited for millennia by Indigenous peoples, with distinct trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these older civilizations had long faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have been discovered through archaeological investigations.
• The Geography of Canada The country has a vast geography that occupies much of the continent of North America, sharing a land border with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest. Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean.
• Canada-US Relations The countries have had a long and complex relationship that has had a significant impact on each other's history, economy, and culture. The two countries have once historically considered themselves among the "closest allies". They share the longest border (8,891 km (5,525 mi)) between any two sovereign states in the world. Americans rank Canada as one of their respective most favoured nations and historically, a majority of Canadians have held mostly favorable views of the United States. However, the two countries' relations saw rapid deterioration during President Donald Trump's second term due to the 2025 U.S. trade war with Canada and U.S. annexation threats towards Canada.
  

A World of Empire

The video above is the second lecture by Prof. Timothy Snyder from his lectures on Hitler and Stalin Today. The second lecture (above) takes a flyover view of history from the Roman Empire to the Present. The ten lecture series is available on YouTube at Timothy Synder: Hitler and Stalin Today.

Essentially, the lecture covers the period for which I have data and models (-20,000BCE - Present). In Prof. Synder's Video lecture (above) a few different points about the period are made to understand the importance of Empires:

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Notes

BCE

• Mesopotamia (3500-3000 BCE) an historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.
  
  
  
  
  
• Hunter-Gatherers (20,000-12,000 BCE) a human living in a community (or according to an ancestrally derived lifestyle) in which most or all food is obtained by procuring naturally occurring edible items from the local wildlife and vegetation via hunting, fishing and/or gathering fruits, seeds and other plant parts (collectively known as vegetables) as well as edible fungi such as mushrooms.
• Last Glacial Period (115,000–11,700) also known as the last glacial cycle, occurred from the end of the Last Interglacial to the beginning of the Holocene, from around 115,000–11,700 years ago, and thus corresponds to most of the timespan of the Late Pleistocene.It thus formed the most recent period of what is colloquially known as the "Ice Age".
• Neolithic Revolution (10,000-6,000 BCE) the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period in Afro-Eurasia from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible.
• Roman Warm Period (250BCE-400AD) a period of unusually-warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic.
• Roman Empire (27BCE-1453AD) a state that dominated the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa during the classical period. 

AD

My periodization is somewhat different from Prof. Synder's and was based more on periods over which I wanted to estimate models, considerations from World-Systems Theory and consulting Wikipedia:

• World-System (0-500) The Roman Empire Environmental and Malthusian controllers dominate the models. 
• Early Middle Ages (500-1000) The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and preceding the High Middle Ages (c. 11th to 14th centuries).
• Feudalism (800-1400) Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of various customs and systems that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
• Late Middle Ages (1300-1450) The Late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the period of European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded Early modern Europe (and in much of Europe, the Renaissance).
• The Long 16th Century (1460-1540) On the World History Timeline (above), it covered the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. The Takeoff associated with GDP in the Industrial Revolution was in the future.
• The Long Seventeenth Century (1640-1815) is the period that includes the French Revolution (1789) and the aftermath. In another blog (here), I cover the Long Sixteenth Century (1450-1640) that covers the age of Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell and the English Reformation. And, the period from the French Revolution  to World War I.
• The Long Eighteenth Century (1688-1815) The long 18th century is a phrase used by many British historians to cover a more natural historical period than the simple use of the standard calendar definition of the eighteenth century (1 January 1701 to 31 December 1800).
• The Long Nineteenth Century (1789-1914)  a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
• World-System (1900-1950) World in Depression In a book by Charles Kindleberger World in Depression (1929-1939), Kindleberger argues that (1) Financial markets are prone to contagion (Economic Bubbles), (2) the bubbles spread across countries and (3) Hegemonic leadership is important to stabilizing these dynamics. Markets pass through cycles of boom, crash, panic, repulsion and finally depression (sometimes called the Minsky-Kindleberger model).
• The Long Twentieth Century (1900-2000+) The phrase "the long twentieth century" refers to a period spanning roughly from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, characterized by profound transformations in global politics, economics, society, and technology.
• The World-System (0-2000) In case I missed anything.