As health care financing, organization, and delivery innovations proliferate, the need for comprehensive, detailed data on medical spending has never been more apparent. This study builds on previous work to provide a more comprehensive accounting of medical spending at the individual level than...

As health care financing, organization, and delivery innovations proliferate, the need for comprehensive, detailed data on medical spending has never been more apparent. This study builds on previous work to provide a more comprehensive accounting of medical spending at the individual level than...

Recent data show wide disparity between Japan and the United States in the effectiveness of their health care systems. Japan spends close to the lowest percentage of its gross domestic product on health care among OECD countries, the United States spends the highest, yet life expectancies in...

This chapter summarizes the many aspects of public policy for health care. I first consider government policy affecting individual behaviors. Government intervention to change individual actions such as smoking and drinking is frequently justified on externality grounds. External costs of...