Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Smacking (and defending) Greg Mankiw

by commenters at Ryan Avent's place, and Ryan himself.

Whoever left comments .11. and .28. seems like a swell guy.

UPDATE: Ezra Klein is at it, too. Greg's favorite comment (and mine) is from DaMav:

[Ezra's] argument is basically, "But he didn't even address the salient impact of unicorn dust and pixie wings".

I've heard all about the promise of technlogy and computerization saving money in health care not for years but for decades. The problem is that any savings on individual procedures immediately gets subsumed by additional demand. Nobody says, "Wow, fewer C-Sections, let's pocket the savings and lower the cost of care." Instead it gets turned into meeting improved access or broader services.

I'm delighted that Mankiw is taking you on as a student. Maybe you'll learn something.

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