National expenditures on HIV/AIDS were estimated as summary indicators to assess the country's response to HIV/AIDS. The methodology is based on a matrix system describing the level and flow of health expenditures on HIV/AIDS: an adaptation of the National Health Accounts methods. The expenditures were classified by source (public, private, international), by the use of funds (prevention, care)...

BACKGROUND In India, coping mechanisms for inpatient care costs have been explored in rural areas, but seldom among urbanites. This study aims to explore and compare mechanisms employed by the urban and rural poor for coping with inpatient expenditures, in order to help identify formal mechanisms and policies to provide improved social protection for health care. METHODS A three-step methodol...

The use of asset indices in welfare analysis and poverty targeting is increasing, especially in cases in which data on expenditures are unavailable or hard to collect. We compare alternative approaches to welfare measurement. Our analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, and child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes, are quite robust to ...

I examine the capital expenditures of a sample of 700 takeover targets and firms that went private over the period 1972-1987. For the complete sample, I do not find evidence that takeover targets increase their capital expenditures over the fouryear period before the acquisition or that they overinvest in capital expenditures relative to several benchmarks. Subsample results provide some eviden...

Universal public finance (UPF)-government financing of an intervention irrespective of who is receiving it-for a health intervention entails consequences in multiple domains. First, UPF increases intervention uptake and hence the extent of consequent health gains. Second, UPF generates financial consequences including the crowding out of private expenditures. Finally, UPF provides insurance eit...

Medicare's resource-based relative value scale (RBRVS) was implemented 1 January 1992 for physician payment using a conversion factor of $31 for each relative value unit (RVU). We calculated a conversion factor of $42.24 for The Travelers Insurance Company's group health plan business using the RBRVS methodology and the calendar year 1990 Travelers Large Case Norms Extract of active employees. ...

Health policy-makers worldwide have adopted different Reference Pricing (RP) systems for pharmaceuticals. Systems may differ concerning their effects on pharmaceutical prices, firms’ strategies, market structure, public and private expenditure, health outcomes and Research and Development (R&D) investments. We present evidence from a recent systematic review of the effects of RP across differen...

This study uses Medicaid claims data for income-eligible enrollees in California, Georgia and Mississippi to compare expenditures, resource usage and health risks between residents of rural and urban areas of the states. Resource use is measured using the Resource Based Relative Value Scale (RBRVS) system for professional services, hospital days and outpatient facility visits; it also is valued...

Governments in emerging markets often behave like a “tormented insurer”, trying to use non-state-contingent debt instruments to avoid cuts in payments to private agents despite large fluctuations in public revenues. In the data, average public debt-GDP ratios decline as the variability of revenues increases, primary balances and current expenditures follow cyclical patterns sharply at odds with...

The French health system combines universal coverage with a public-private mix of hospital and ambulatory care and a higher volume of service provision than in the United States. Although the system is far from perfect, its indicators of health status and consumer satisfaction are high; its expenditures, as a share of gross domestic product, are far lower than in the United States; and patients...