As part of the process of enacting the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act (MCCA) in 1988, both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimated the cost of the pharmaceutical part of the proposal which varied substantially. For some benefit...

The cost of efforts to expand health insurance coverage to the currently uninsured increases when people who would otherwise purchase private insurance obtain subsidized public coverage. Legislators are increasingly interested in mechanisms that target insurance benefits to those who need them...