The Australian government implemented several new policy initiatives during 1997--2000, with the stated aim of raising the take-up rate of private health insurance. Taken together, these policy initiatives were quite effective, the proportion of the population with private health insurance cover...

In health economics and health care planning, the observation that age cohorts are generally positively correlated with per capita health expenditures is often cited as evidence that population ageing is the main driver of health care costs. Several recent studies, however, challenge this view....