Follette and Sheiner focus on the determinants of the historical and prospective growth in health care spending in the United States. Income and aging had a large role in the past, and the rise in health insurance coverage had a dramatic effect on spending for health care of the elderly. The...

In this paper, we examine the effects of likely demographic changes on medical spending for the elderly. Standard forecasts highlight the potential for greater life expectancy to increase costs: medical costs generally increase with age, and greater life expectancy means that more of the elderly...

We evaluate the long-run sustainability of health spending growth. Under the criterion that non-health consumption does not fall, one percent excess cost growth appears to be an upper bound for the economy as a whole when the projection horizon extends over the century, although some groups...

This paper examines the degree to which the elderly reduce homeownership as they age, and the factors which influence this process. We find that average levels of homeownership decline significantly with age, even when cohort effects are taken into consideration, and that the amount of housing...

We use data across states to examine the relation between HMO enrollment and medical spending. We find that increased managed care enrollment significantly reduces hospital cost growth. Although increased spending on physicians offsets some of this effect, we generally find a significant...

Points out some of the important considerations and compares how two competing health reform initiatives, the Clinton administration's "Health Security Act" and Representative Cooper's "Managed Competition Act," deal with health care reform.