New Blog
 

Wow. Who could have predicted this? From Posner:

"A rational decision to go to war should be based on a comparison of the costs and benefits . . . ."

Policy analysis
 

From the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Projected Economic Costs Due to Health Consequences of Teenagers’ Loss of Confidentiality in Obtaining Reproductive Health Care Services in Texas

• ABSTRACT
  
  Background We wanted to focus on the potential consequences of recently enacted legislation in Texas that limits adolescents’ ability to obtain confidential reproductive health care services.
  
  Objective To assess the potential economic costs that result when adolescents do not seek reproductive health care services because their confidentiality is compromised.
  
  Design We developed a cost model to estimate the projected costs of parental consent and law enforcement reporting requirements based on data from the literature, the Texas Department of Health, and publicly funded family planning clinics in Texas. Univariate and multivariate sensitivity analyses explored different scenarios.
  
  Setting The state of Texas.
  
  Participants Projected costs were estimated for all girls younger than 18 years using publicly funded reproductive health care services in Texas.
  
  Main Outcome Measures We determined the projected number of additional pregnancies, births, abortions, and untreated sexually transmitted infections and resulting pelvic inflammatory disease and calculated the associated economic costs of these projected outcomes.
  
  Results The potential costs of parental consent and law enforcement reporting requirements in Texas were estimated at $43.6 million (range, $11.8 million to $56.6 million) for girls younger than 18 years currently using publicly funded services.
  
  Conclusions As policymakers throughout the United States search for ways to curtail adolescent sexual activity and its adverse consequences, this analysis suggests that the limiting of medical confidentiality and the resulting restricted use of reproductive health care services potentially have serious health and economic consequences.

Follow the link to the full article. It's amazing how terrified we are in this country of kids having sex.

Policy analysis
 

No, it's amazing that we think that if kids aren't able to learn about sex or obtain protection from pregnancy/STDs, they will abstain from sex.

Policy analysis
 

With an appropriate disclaimer that I would give the same sex ed that you would, you're sounding like that guy who wrote "What's The Matter With Kansas", in which he says that all the red-staters voted against their own interests, but in which he made the mistake of thinking that he knew what their interests were as well as they did. I think they might say that you are judging by the wrong criteria.

Policy analysis
 

While I follow your general point, I think the situations are a bit different.

Unlike the Kansasan (Kansasanian?) example, here I think it's less of a leap to assume that significantly more unintended pregnancies, and their attendant costs, were either a neutral or beneficial byproduct of the legislature's goals of, ah, preventing teen sex.

Policy analysis
 

If your point is that many people care more about the message sent rather than its real-world effects, I agree. But there is also some truth to the idea that those people don't like to put it that way, and instead pretend that sending the right message will result in only the best of all possible worlds.

Policy analysis
 

Which criteria am I judging incorrectly: The additional cost ($43.6 million)? The number of STIs (3.11 more cases of chlamydia, $980 per 100 girls, HIV wasn't included in the modelling because the incidence in 2002 was too low)? The number of pregnancies (increase of 11.45 pregnancies, 7.44 births and 2.29 abortions at $60,952 per 100 teens)?

The model that they used may be wrong, and I am not certain that they are interpreting relevant statutes correctly (at least I hope not, because otherwise I have a lot of phone calls to make to clients tomorrow who will not be happy that they're going to have to rat out their patients and patients' sexual partners to law enforcement), but I do not think that the intent of the legislation was to increase teen pregnancy and STI.

Policy analysis
 

Bilmore thinks you are more interested in attacking the people who voted for the more restrictive laws than you are in the laws' actual effects in the real world.

Policy analysis
 

I haven't read the book, as it seems somewhat cheesy. But I saw the author on the Daily Show (for a few minutes -- like most people, he gives a crappy interview on that show) and got the impression that he says that the "red staters" voted against their economic interests.* Not against their interests overall, or more accurately not against what they define as their interests.

Kind of what the Romans called "bread and circuses."**



*I'm not sure I agree with him on that, either. Response one would be "farm subsidies." Response 2 would be "you think the blue-staters will let the red states keep sucking on the federal teat forever if they could do anything about it?"

**Not really, but I like saying "bread and circuses." It's the ancient equivalent of tits and beer.

Policy analysis
 

Is that what the enlightened Bay Area folks are calling that new Hooters joint down by the Wharf?

Policy analysis
 

Like the rest of Fisherman's Wharf, no self-respecting Bay Area resident would be caught dead down there.

Tyranny of the Minority?
 

• In an appearance before Congress in February, when the controversy over Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl moment was at its height, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell laid some startling statistics on U.S. senators.
  
  The number of indecency complaints had soared dramatically to more than 240,000 in the previous year, Powell said. The figure was up from roughly 14,000 in 2002, and from fewer than 350 in each of the two previous years. There was, Powell said, “a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes.”
  
  
  What Powell did not reveal—apparently because he was unaware—was the source of the complaints. According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003—99.8 percent—were filed by the Parents Television Council, an activist group.
  
  This year, the trend has continued, and perhaps intensified.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mediaweek/h..._id=1000731656

Wonderful
 

This Should be Getting Lots More Attention
 

Wonderful
 

Tres amusant.