The Health Disparities Myth

Many experts today insist that bias in the doctor's office will lead to poorer treatment of minority patients. A new monograph by Jonathan Klick of Florida State University and AEI's Sally Satel, The Health Disparities Myth: Diagnosing the Treatment Gap (AEI Press, 2006) found no evidence to support the idea that racially biased doctors are a cause of poor minority health

To Regulate, Litigate, or Both

In the United States insurance is regulated both by state insurance commissions and class action litigation. The interaction of these two systems has not been extensively studied. We examine four different facets of the regulation litigation tradeoff. The first is to examine whether regulator’s interest in a particular cause of action reduces the likelihood that class actions covering this cause of action will be filed in the regulator’s home state. We also examine several measures of regulatory stringency in the state to determine whether there is a substitution effect between regulatory action and litigation. We also examine whether class actions are less frequent when regulators issued an administrative decision on a particular issue previously or if there are no existing state laws on the particular issue. We examine the impact of electing judges on patterns of filing. The hypothesis is that elected judges are more sympathetic to plaintiffs and hence class actions are more likely to be filed in states that elect their judges. Lastly, we examine the impact of pervious litigation both in the state and the specific line of litigation.

Are Mental Health Insurance Mandates Effective? Evidence from Suicides

Many states have passed laws mandating insurance companies to provide or offer some form of mental health benefits. These laws presumably lower the price of obtaining mental health services for many adults, and as a result, might improve health outcomes. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of mental health insurance mandates by examining the influence of mandates on adult suicides, which are strongly correlated with mental illness. Data on completed suicides in each state for the period 1981-2000 are analyzed. Ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares results show that mental health mandates are not effective in reducing suicide rates.

The Effect of Abortion Liberalization on Sexual Behavior: International Evidence

Most industrialized countries have increased access to abortion over the past 30 years. Economic theory predicts that abortion laws affect sexual behavior since they change the marginal cost of having risky sex. We use gonorrhea incidence as a metric of risky sexual behavior. Using a panel of 41 North American, European and Central Asian countries over the period 1980-2000, we estimate the impact of abortion law reform on risky sex. Compared to the most restrictive legislation that permits abortion only to save the pregnant woman’s life or her physical health, more liberal abortion laws are associated with at least thirty additional gonorrhea cases per 100,000 individuals. The marginal effect of laws which make abortion available on request is larger than the effect of laws which allow abortion on socioeconomic and mental health grounds. Our results are robust against a set of alternative sample constructions and model specifications.Gonorrhea, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortion laws.