The U.S. healthcare system is undergoing a period of substantial change, with hospitals purchasing many physician practices (“vertical integration"). In theory, this vertical integration could improve quality by promoting care coordination, but could also worsen it by impacting the care...

Over 2009-2019 the seemingly inexorable rise in health care’s share of GDP markedly slowed, both in the US and elsewhere. To address whether this slowdown represents a reduced steady-state growth rate or just a temporary pause we specify and estimate a decomposition of health care spending...

I describe several changes to Medicare in the 1990s, their rationale, and their likely effects. I focus principally on issues in the administered price systems Medicare uses to pay medical providers, especially those used for post-acute care providers, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs),...

I look at prevention through an economic lens and make three main points. First, those advocating preventive measures are often asked how much money a given measure saves. This question is misguided. Rather preventive measures can be thought of as insurance, with a certain cost in the present...

Medicare continues to implement payment reforms that shift reimbursement from fee-for-service towards episode-based payment, affecting average and marginal reimbursement. We contrast the effects of two reforms for home health agencies. The Home Health Interim Payment System in 1997 lowered both...

In this survey chapter on pricing and reimbursement in U.S. pharmaceutical markets, we first provide background information on important federal legislation, institutional details regarding distribution channel logistics, definitions of alternative price measures, related historical...