Technological advances in health care have been shown to yield large average health benefits for the U.S. elderly population. However, less is known about the marginal or incremental benefits of health care spending. We use geographical variations in health care spending to measure the marginal...

Technological advances in health care have been shown to yield large average health benefits for the U.S. elderly population. However, less is known about the marginal or incremental benefits of health care spending. We use geographical variations in health care spending to measure the marginal...

Characterizes the enormous geographic disparity in Medicare spending across the U.S. (even after adjustment for demographics) as the fundamental problem in the program. Reviews alternative approaches that could more directly address the problem of geographic misallocation of health care issues.