The chronic health care crisis in the United States is primarily the result of rapidly rising health care costs which leave millions of children and pregnant women without health insurance, with restricted access to health care, and at risk for poor health. A better understanding of the current...

We examine the potential for reducing cigarette smoking through increases in cigarette excise taxes by estimating the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes. Using information on individual smoking behavior for a sample of adults in the 1976 Health Interview Survey, we estimate the adult...

We examine the impact of three sets of government regulations on the demand for cigarettes by teenagers in the United States. These are: (1) the excise tax on cigarettes, (2) the Fairness Doctrine of the Federal Communications Commission, which resulted in the airing of anti-smoking messages on...

A population of seven general surgeons in a prepaid group practice previously shown to have a mean operative work load of 9.2 HE per week were found to have a mean standardized seven day working week of 56.2 hours exclusive of evening activities. The surgeons also devoted a mean of 6.7 evening...

The median operative workload of seven general surgeons comprising the general surgical staff of a prepaid group practice of 158,000 enrollees was 9.9 hernia equivalents (HE) a week. The value was over three times that of a previously studied population of 19 general surgeons in fee-for-service...

We use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) for the years 2004 - 2012 to examine the impact of economic shocks on the family's out-of-pocket health care spending burden. We define this burden as the share of family income devoted to out-of-pocket health care spending. In...

The central role that employers play in financing health care is a distinctive feature of the U.S. health care system, and the provision of health insurance through the workplace has important implications well beyond its role as source of health care financing. In this paper, we consider the...

We consider two compelling research questions raised by the increased prevalence of overweight among adolescents. First, what factors explain variation in adolescent bodyweight and the likelihood of being overweight? Next, do overweight adolescents incur greater health care expenditures compared...

The weak response by the uninsured to policy initiatives encouraging voluntary enrollment in health insurance has raised concerns regarding the extent to which the uninsured value health insurance. To address this issue, we use data from the 2001 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to examine the...