Discusses health care financing reform as a state and local tax and policy issue. Identifies tax policy modeling techniques that can be applied to measure the impact of health policy, and considers managed competition, medical savings accounts and long- term health reform.

Changes in the tax rate on capital gains have profound effects on the volume of gains individuals choose to realize. While much of the recent policy debate has focused upon the magnitude of taxpayer response, this paper investigates the mechanism that underlies it - changes in the holding period...