We use a unique, nationally representative cross-national dataset to document the reduction in individuals' usage of routine non-emergency medical care in the midst of the economic crisis. A substantially larger fraction of Americans have reduced medical care than have individuals in Great...

We investigate the effect of managed care on the health care system, focusing on the effects managed care could have on the number and types of health care providers and their efficiency. By influencing providers, managed care may change the structure and performance of the entire health care...

Health care providers may vertically integrate not only to facilitate coordination of care, but also for strategic reasons that may not be in patients' best interests. Optimal Medicare reimbursement policy depends upon the extent to which each of these explanations is correct. To investigate, we...

Between 1960 and 1997, life expectancy at birth of Americans increased approximately 10% - from 69.7 to 76.5 years - and it has been estimated that the value of life extension during this period nearly equaled the gains in tangible consumption. We investigate whether an aggregate health...

Increasing levels of HMO activity may influence health expenditures in other sectors of the market. Medicare provides FFS coverage to the majority of its beneficiaries and may thus provide a way of examining these so-called spillover effects. This paper examines 1986-1990 Medicare FFS...

This paper discusses health economics as a behavioral science and as input into health policy and health services research. I illustrate the dual role with data on publications and citations of two leading health economics journals and three leading American health economists. Five important,...

Patients rely on medical care providers to act in their best interests because providers understand disease pathology and appropriate treatment much better than patients. Providers, however, not only give advice (diagnose) but also deliver (sell) treatments based on that advice. This creates a...

The durability of health care treatment, the substantial technical change in health care treatment, and the prevalence of third-party payment interact to create substantial difficulty in measuring the price and output of health care. This paper provides a framework for analyzing the demand for...

Provider payments are the key determinant of insurance generosity within many health insurance programs covering low-income populations. This paper analyzes the effects of a large, federally-mandated provider payment increase for primary care services provided to low-income elderly and disabled...

An assessment of the efficiency of Federally funded community health centers (CHCs) in delivering ambulatory medical care to poverty populations reveals that the centers' input decisions reflect departures from cost-minimizing behavior. In particular, they employ too few physician aids (nurses...