Monthly Archives: November 2016

Wondering about 2.5%

I can’t help wondering how the election outcome would have been different if the headline that was prominently featured in the news for the last month had been the one we just received in the email message from the Boston University Human Resources Department that said:

  • Contribution rates for 2017 – we are pleased to inform you that the health plan rates are increasing by only 2.5% for 2017

This sure paints a different picture of the ACA than “it’s a disaster” and rates are going to increase at double digit rates.

And this is more typical of premium increases for the past four years.

Fact: The average real increase in per enrollee spending in the private sector from 2010 to 2014 was 1%, and it was negative for Medicare and Medicaid. (Obama, JAMA, 2016)

(This is my last blog on politics and health policy for a while. Too distracting.)

 

 

Did BU economics students vote in the 2016 general election?

In order to better understand what happened in last week's US election, and perhaps also to encourage more students to both register and vote in the NEXT election, I created a very simple one-question survey using SurveyMonkey and arranged for it to be sent to all Economics students at Boston University. I first polled graduate (Ph.D. and MA) students, and then undergraduate majors and students in principles of economics courses. Among the first 515 respondents (which happened in four days) I found that among people eligible to vote, 76% of undergraduates and 81% of graduate students in the economics program voted. Reflecting the high fraction of people who are foreigners in our programs, 33% of undergraduates and 65% of graduate student respondents were not eligible to vote. Among those potentially eligible to vote, 4% of BU undergraduates reported that they had made some effort to try to register or vote, but were unable to. For example, their request for an absentee ballot was ignored or the ballot arrived too late, or they could not vote absentee the first time they were voting, or  some other specified reason.

This is of course not a random sample of all voters, but reflects those who replied to my request.

If you would like to implement the same poll at your university or college, please send me an email privately and I will send you a customized poll for your university that you can use at no cost.  The email I used to invite people to respond is below.

Surveymonkey will let you conduct a free poll with up to 50 responses, or get up to 1000 responses for only $26 for the first month. I would be happy to collaborate for free for the first ten collaborators at other universities or colleges.

Detailed BU Economics Poll results

BU Voting results 20161114

 

 

Hello,

 

 

 

Full text of inviting email:

Hello

I am a professor in the Economics Department at Boston University who is trying to better understand the recent election results.

I would appreciate it if you would answer this ONE QUESTION survey about the election which I am sending only to BU students.

Please answer it only once and do not forward it.

 

Once you respond, you will see the responses of other students at Boston University who have already replied. You do not need to be a US citizen or be eligible to vote to answer this survey. I do not ask you who you voted for.

 

The survey results are confidential: I am not tracking  the URLs of those who have responded.

 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FFPWCZM

 

Thank you in advance for your participation.

 

In  a few days I will post a summary of the results on my blog which is linked here.

http://blogs.bu.edu/ellisrp/blogs/

 

Randy Ellis

 

Randall P. Ellis, Ph.D.

Professor, Department of Economics, Boston University

ellisrp@bu.edu     Off: +1 617-353-2741       http://blogs.bu.edu/ellisrp/

 

I am sorry

Dear BUHealth friends, alumni, students and colleagues.

Like most of the people I know, I am immensely saddened by the results of the US presidential elections, which have elected Donald Trump as president and elected republicans to run both houses of congress.

My view is that hate and party loyalty won out in the end over any reasoned comparisons of the two presidential candidates.

I hope to try harder to understand the views of the those who voted for Donald Trump and why they fell for such a clever salesman.

A good place to start is to reread the blogs I posted by and about Scott Adams who alone was consistently supporting and predicting the victory of Donald Trump for over a year. Sadly, Adams was right and the rest of us, driven by incorrect polling predictions, were wrong.

http://blogs.bu.edu/ellisrp/2016/09/why-trump-is-going-to-win-the-us-presidency/

Austin Frakt (at TheIncidentalEconomist.com) has already posted a very useful blog on what health reforms and directions are mostly likely under Donald Trump.  It is linked here if you are interested or if you are asked to discuss this with your family or colleagues..

The next health reform

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/the-next-health-reform/

I am lucky that I live and work in a state and occupation that hopefully will not experience the brunt of the pain that I predict is ahead.

Some people may take solace in the fact that Marijuana was legalized for possession, home growing, and recreational use in Massachusetts starting this December 15 2016 (although not to be legally sold in dispensaries for another year).

I for one plan to try to add to our sadly lacking civility by calling him Donald Trump, or president-elect Trump, rather than simply Trump.

Randy