asia healthspace

Those who know me well, know that I have a passion for economics and finance and without fail, I compliantly take my daily dose (nice medical metaphor!) of financial news and bloggers. One of the financial blogs I follow and mostly respect, is called “Naked Capitalism” which is founded and managed by Yves Smith. Well [...]

A seemingly ubiquitous item on the reform agenda of most developed and now developing nations is “healthcare reform”. Whether we talk about the U.S. private/hybrid health care system or universal healthcare systems such as Canada’s, U.K.’s, Australia’s, and France’s, it appears the grass is much greener on the other side though as far as I [...]

Kudos to Dr. Rich of The Covert Rationing Blog for trying to further debate in the topic of physician-industry relationships and conflicts of interests. I have also spoke to this effect in my article “What conflicts of interest? Trust me – I’m a doctor.” addressing what I think is a urgent need for Asian physicians [...]

Most doctors are damn good people; saints really (NO sarcasm intended). They are society’s ultimate deliberate and personally committed altruists and are the only profession that I know that has officially and internationally codified their morals/ethics values. So it with this premise in mind that I mark the question in the title after reading this [...]

Ever since I was a young lad of 17 years age (let’s just say at least 2 decades have passed!) I have been feverishly following the world of politics and economics. No journal or publication has informed and influenced me more than the Economist. Growing up in a small blue-collar Canadian town (Sarnia, Ontario), one [...]

Was wondering out loud whether politicians, at least in the Philippines, have heard of two basic micro-economic concepts 1: substitution effect and 2. utility maximization? (source: wikipedia) “An ordinary good is a microeconomic concept used in consumer theory. It is defined as a good which creates increased demand when the price for the good drops [...]

Medical tourism – the practice of traveling to another country for healthcare reasons and enjoying a holiday at the same time is a key economic growth drivers that countries with advanced medical infrastructure and capabilities are looking at developing. Most countries offering medical tourism lure potential customers by offering cost-effective yet quality delivery of complex [...]

Memo: To All American Surgeons Dear Surgeons, Please understand that we sympathize with your demanding workloads especially under the scrutiny of litigious leaning patients and ‘high threshold-you have to need it’ utilization review committees at HMO’s, however, we feel strongly that economies of scale will help drive down health care costs and we believe driving [...]

Thanks to the WSJ for catapulting me back into the blogosphere….. The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery In India, a Factory Model for Hospitals Is Cutting Costs and Yielding Profits This analogy definitely requires a comment or two. The above linked article was presented by Geeta Anand in the Wall Street Journal a couple a [...]

For those of you interested in capital markets commentary especially relating to the current state of economic affairs in the United States, Karl Denninger writes a serious thought provoking blog at The Market Ticker. Recently Karl has been pounding the table on issues relating to health care reform. His first article appeared on July 9th [...]