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Robert
F. Graboyes, MSHA, PhD Senior
Fellow for Health and Economics NFIB
Research Foundation | 1201 F Street NW, Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20004 202.314.2063 | bob.graboyes@nfib.org
| www.NFIB.com/DrBob Professor
(health economics): VCU | UVa | GMU | GWU Personal:
rfgraboyes@gmail.com | www.robertgraboyes.com Quotes for Health and
Economics Self-interest:
“Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as they spend
their own.” – attributed to
Milton Friedman Secondary effects:
"The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good
economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct
consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the
longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect
of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good
economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all
groups." – Henry Hazlitt Physician: "I
will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability
and my judgment and never do harm to anyone." – Hippocrates Method:
"The Theory of Economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions
immediately applicable to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an
apparatus of the mind, a technique of thinking which helps its possessor to
draw correct conclusions." –
John Maynard Keynes Evidence:
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" – John Maynard Keynes Incentives:
"Most of economics can be summarized in four words: 'People respond to
incentives.' The rest is commentary. ... 'People respond to incentives'
sounds innocuous enough, and almost everyone will admit its validity as a
general principle. What distinguishes the economist is his insistence on taking
the principle seriously at all times." – Steven Landsburg Population:
"Increasing population is the most certain possible sign of the
happiness and prosperity of a state; but the actual population may be only a
sign of the happiness that is past." –
Thomas Robert Malthus Theory:
"Facts by themselves are silent." – Alfred Marshall Costs:
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free." –
P.J. O'Rourke Technological imperative:
“The dilemma of modern medicine, and the underlying central flaw in
medical education … is this irresistible drive to do something,
anything. It is expected by patients and too often agreed to by doctors, in
the face of ignorance.” –
Lewis Thomas Therapeutics: "When
I arrived at Harvard Medical School in 1933, nobody talked about therapeutics
as though it were a coherent medical discipline, in the sense that
pharmacology is today. To be sure, there were a few things to learn about:
digitalis for heart failure, insulin, liver extract for pernicious anemia,
vitamin B for pellagra, a few others. By and large, we were instructed not to
meddle. Our task was to learn all that was known about the natural history of
disease so that we could make an accurate diagnosis, and a reasonably
probabilistic prognosis. That done, our function as doctors would be to
enlist the best possible nursing care, explain matters to the patient and
family, and to stand by." –
Lewis Thomas Technology and costs:
"The explosion of medical technology in the late 20th century has forced
physicians to think seriously about cost containment. When my father first
practiced medicine in the 1950s, his pharmaceutical armamentarium included a
handful of antibiotics and 2 or 3 antihypertensives. The most expensive
diagnostic tests were plain film radiographs. It was easier to give patients
the best health care money could buy, because there was not as much health
care to buy." – Peter Ubel More technology and costs:
"Medical research has pushed the boundaries of what doctors can do for
us in every direction. The Cooper Clinic in Dallas now offers an extensive
checkup (with a full body scan) for about $1,500 or more. Its clients include
Ross Perot, Larry King, and other high-profile individuals. Yet if everyone in
America took advantage of this opportunity, we would increase our nation's
health bill by a third. More than 900 diagnostic tests can be done on blood
alone, and one doesn't need much imagination to justify, say, $5,000 worth of
tests each year. But if everyone did so, we would double the nation's health
care bill. Americans purchase nonprescription drugs almost twelve billion
times a year and almost all of these are acts of self-medication. Yet if
everyone sought a physician's advice before making such purchases, we would
need twenty-five times the number of primary care physicians we currently
have. Some 1,100 tests can be done on our genes to determine if we have a
predisposition toward one disease or another. At, say, $1,000 a test, it
would cost more than $1 million for a patient to run the full gamut. But if
every American did so, the total cost would run to about thirty times the
nation's total output of goods and services. ... Notice that in
hypothetically spending all of this money, we have not yet cured a single
disease or treated an actual illness. In these examples, we are simply
collecting information. If in the process of the search we actually found
something that warranted treatment, we could spend even more." – John Goodman, Devon Herrick, and
Gerald Musgrave Costs:
"There is no such thing as a free lunch." – popularized by Milton Friedman (Robert Heinlein used the
variant, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch," or TANSTAAFL) Mathematical methods:
"In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to
them." – attributed to John
von Neumann Managed Care:
"The patient said to the doctor, 'It hurts when I do this.' The doctor
said, 'Then don't do that.'" –
Henny Youngman |
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