Researchers considering levels and trends in the resources available to the middle class traditionally measure the pre-tax cash income of either tax units or households. In this paper, we demonstrate that this choice carries significant implications for assessing income trends. Focusing on tax...

In this paper, we calculate the consequences for health spending and federal revenues of an above-the-line deduction for out-of-pocket health spending. We show how the response of spending to this expansion in the tax preference can be specified as a function of a small number of behavioral...

The Affordable Care Act Marketplaces were introduced in 2014 as part of a reform of the U.S. individual health insurance market. While the individual market represents a small slice of the U.S. population, it has historically been the market segment with the lowest rates of take-up and greatest...

In order to encourage entry and lower prices, most regulated markets for health insurance include policies that seek to reduce the uncertainty faced by insurers. In addition to risk adjustment of premiums paid to plans, the Health Insurance Marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act...

The conventional method for developing health care plan payment systems uses existing data to study alternative algorithms with the purpose of creating incentives for an efficient and fair health care system. In this paper, we take a different approach and modify the input data rather than the...

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for health insurance on health care spending using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996-2005. We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings below a statutory threshold to identify the impact...

U.S. health care spending in 2012 totaled $2.8 trillion or 17.2 percent of gross domestic product. Given the magnitude of health care spending, the large public sector role in health care, and the reforms being implemented under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), we believe it...

This paper explores the changing role of government involvement in health care financing policy outside the United States. It provides a review of the economics literature in this area to understand the implications of recent policy changes on efficiency, costs and quality. Our review reveals...

Recent outbreaks of infectious pathogens such as Zika, Ebola, and COVID-19 have underscored the need for the dependable availability of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). The cost and risk of R&D programs and uniquely unpredictable demand for EID vaccines have discouraged...

This paper examines the efficiency and equity implications of alternative health care system financing strategies. Using data across the OECD, I find that almost all financing choices are compatible with efficiency in the delivery of health care, and that there has been no consistent and...