Healthcare systems differ greatly across the world, however, it appears that the extent of public insurance (publicly/government funded healthcare) is the only institutional characteristic that plays a significant role in accounting for the large disparities in total healthcare spending. Other...

I evaluate how the probability of substitution of a prescribed drug in a pharmacy depends on the pharmacists' profits and patients' out of pocket costs. I use Finnish population-wide data covering all prescriptions of three popular antidepressants. I find that one euro increase in the total...

Policymakers on both ends of the political spectrum have been looking for ways to reduce prescription drug prices. Democrats have also been working on expanding healthcare coverage, including different versions of Medicare for All. All these proposals have been framed as issues of access and...

A versão em português deste texto está disponível em: "http://ssrn.com/abstract=2441607" http://ssrn.com/abstract=2441607 La versione italiana di questo documento è disponibile all'indirizzo: "http://ssrn.com/abstract=2607031" http://ssrn.com/abstract=2607031La versión en español de este...

The medical community often argues that physician fear of legal liability increases health care spending. Theoretically, though, the effect could be positive or negative, and empirical evidence has supported both cases. Previous empirical work, however, has ignored the fact that physicians face...

Using data on political spending in state elections, this study considers the role of political contributions by healthcare professional interest groups in states' decisions to enact occupational licensing laws. These laws govern how different professions may operate in healthcare markets, and...

Scholars and policymakers across the ideological spectrum agree that the U.S. drug pricing system is deeply flawed. Most reform proposals focus on one symptom: high prices for existing drugs. But high prices aren’t all that ails the U.S. drug pricing system: Current law also provides weak...

The Trump Administration has exposed both the durability and vulnerability of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s insurance reforms. One of the Administration’s first strikes at “Obamacare” was to discontinue federal government payment of cost-sharing reductions, which...

Forty percent of spiraling US drug costs are based on a mere two percent of all drugs –biologic drugs (biologics) made from living cells that are administered by injection or infusion. These costs will continue to balloon as new biologics are approved; the recently approved Alzheimer’s drug is...

Underlying today's and the future's health care reform debate is a consensus that America's health care financing system is in a slow-moving but deep crisis: care appears substandard in comparison with other advanced industrial countries, and relative costs are exploding beyond all reasonable...