Awareness and AIDS: A Political Economy Perspective* Across African countries, prevention policies are unrelated to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and, even in countries in which they were successful, these policies are often unstable or reversed. To explain these two puzzles, we propose a simple political economy model that examines how prevention policies and the epidemic dynamics are jointly det...

This study seeks to provide evidence for deciding whether or not a new pharmaceutical should be included in the benefit list of social health insurance. A discrete-choice experiment (DCE) was conducted in Germany to measure preferences for modern insulin therapy using long-acting insulin analogue ”insulin detemir” in comparison to NPH insulin. The DCE contains two price attributes, copayment an...

We compare healthcare spending in public and private Medicare using newly available claims data from Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers. MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their healthcare spending. Healthcare spending is 25 percent lower for MA enrollees than for enrollees in traditional Medicare (TM) in the same county with the same risk score. Spending differences between MA and TM...

We consider a life-cycle model with idiosyncratic risk in earnings, out-of-pocket medical and nursing home expenses, and survival. Partial insurance is available through welfare, Medicaid, and social security. Calibrating the model to the United States we show that savings for old-age, out-of-pocket expenses account for 13.5 percent of aggregate wealth, half of which is due to nursing home expe...

In recent decades, the prevalence of obesity in America has increased dramatically. Though it has attracted less attention, the demographic composition of the American population also changed during this period. We decompose the increase in the average body mass index of the American population over 30 years and show that demographic changes explain a statistically significant but economically ...

Medical Technology and the Production of Health Care This paper investigates the factors that determine differences across OECD countries in health outcomes, using data on life expectancy at age 65, over the period 1960 to 2007. We estimate a production function where life expectancy depends on health and social spending, lifestyle variables, and medical innovation. Our first set of regressions...

In response to the growing burden of obesity, public primary prevention programs against obesity have been widely recommended. Several studies estimated the cost effects of diabetes prevention trials for different countries and found that diabetes prevention can be costeffective. Nevertheless, it is still controversial if prevention conducted in more real-world settings and among people with in...

Medicaid was established in 1965 as a joint state and federal program to provide medical insurance to Americans who are poor and have disabilities, and it has grown from 1 percent to 3 percent of GDP. The source of Medicaid’s growth over the past 50 years must inform efforts to reform the program and slow spending. The literature on the political economy of Medicaid provides strong evidence of ...

Son yıllarda hizmet ihracatında artış yaşanan sektörlerinden birisi de sağlık turizmi olmuştur. Sağlık turisti sayısı ve turizm geliri artışında kuşkusuz küreselleşmenin, iletişim teknolojilerinin ulaşım imkanlarının gelişmesi, gelişmiş ülkelerde bekleme sürelerinin uzaması hizmetinde artan maliyet baskıları en önemli etken Ülkemizde politikalarının konularından haline gelen turizmi, ekonomik a...