After a period of relatively low health care inflation during the 1990s, health care costs increased sharply in 1999 and 2000, and similarly high increases are estimated for 2001. The news for employers providing health insurance and their employees is worse: data indicate that increases in insurance premiums exceed the increases in the cost of care. Finally, whereas employers might have absorb...

Primary care is the foundation of a nation’s healthcare system – it is well documented that countries with a strong primary care system have better population health and lower healthcare costs. Despite initiatives such as Health Canada’s $800 million Primary Healthcare Transition Fund (Health Canada 2007), the development and performance of Canada’s primary healthcare sector have lagged in comp...

The term Diagnosis-related Group (DRG) refers to a classification system used to assess hospital services with the aim of a better management of health care costs and improving performance. The DRG system focuses on the utilization of resources, and is not concerned with the specific type of care provided to the patient. This system highlights any diseconomies and eventual critical aspects of t...

An exploratory home health care (HHC) cost-function model is estimated using State rate-setting data for the 74 traditional (nonprofit) Connecticut agencies. The analysis demonstrates U-shaped average costs curves for agencies' provision of skilled nursing visits, with substantial diseconomies of scale in the observable range. It is determined from the estimated cost function that the sample re...

We analyze the incidence of public-employee health benefits. Because these benefits are negotiated through the political process, relevant labor market institutions deviate significantly from the competitive, private-sector benchmark. Empirically, we find that roughly 15 percent of the cost of recent benefit growth was passed onto school district employees through reductions in wages and salari...

The Affordable Care Act enters its fifth year firmly entrenched in our national consciousness. One method that has entered the vernacular for achieving cost savings is accountable care. There are other approaches that are less well known. The Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative has the potential to significantly impact neurointerventionalists. We review that initiative here.

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Growth in U.S. health spending has historically been associated with growth in prices paid to health care inputs in excess of economywide inflation and to increases in the employment of health inputs. Increases in input prices largely result in transfers from some citizens to others, while increases in employment mean less of other outputs--which is harmful if those other outputs are more valua...