The problem of how to pay the increasingly costly medical bills of retired Americans is rapidly rising as a national priority, not just among policymakers, but also among the general public. As a result, deeper thinking within the health policy community on two broad issues is taking place: How...

This paper examines the tradeoffs of monitoring for wasteful public spending. By penalizing unnecessary spending, monitoring improves the quality of public expenditure and incentivizes firms to invest in compliance technology. I study a large Medicare program that monitored for unnecessary...

Prolonged hospital stays, or hospital stays that are longer than medically necessary, are a major concern for patients, payers, and providers. We conceptualize and empirically estimate the prevalence and cost of prolonged stays among elderly hospital patients (65 years and older) in Brazil and...

There is a great deal of geographic variation in Medicare spending. For example, while the average Medicare cost per beneficiary was around $5200 in 1996, Medicare spending, adjusted for diffences in regional prices and demographic composition, was about $8000 per person in Miami, but only $3500...

This study presents four long term scenarios for government and health care services in the Netherlands. In 2001, the expenditure on government and health care services (including pharmaceuticals) was about 24% of Dutch GDP. According to all scenarios this will increase to between 29% and 33% of...

There are widespread differences in health care spending and utilization across regions of the US as well as in other countries. Are these variations caused by demand-side factors such as patient preferences, health status, income, or access? Or are they caused by supply-side factors such as...