Has U.S. health care for the elderly become more equitable during the past several decades? When inequality is measured by Medicare expenditures, the answer is yes. During 1987-2001, low income households experienced an increase of 78 percent ($2624) in per capita expenditures, double the...

Has U.S. health care for the elderly become more equitable during the past several decades? When inequality is measured by Medicare expenditures, the answer is yes. During 1987-2001, low income households experienced an increase of 78 percent ($2624) in per capita expenditures, double the...

This study explores the determinants and characteristics of the out-of-pocket to capacity to pay and catastrophic health expenditures in Turkey using a detailed micro-level survey, the Household Budget Survey during the period 2002-2011. The results show that those who have public health...

Enrollment in one public benefit program often affects enrollment in others. We study life-course spillovers by examining how access to publicly subsidized health insurance prior to age 65 affects public benefit choices at the age of Medicare eligibility. We use administrative data to examine...

Technological innovation in medical services can improve health, but its ability to reach patients often depends on price signals for downstream providers, which can also be discordant across production inputs. We examine such a context when Medicare sharply revises facility fees--while holding...

Unless repeal attempts succeed, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ObamaCare) promises to increase state government obligations on account of Medicaid by expanding Medicaid eligibility and introducing an individual health insurance mandate for all US citizens and legal...

The United States spends substantially more on health care than most developed countries, yet leaves a greater share of the population uninsured. We suggest that incremental insurance expansions focused on addressing market failures will propagate inefficiencies and are not likely to facilitate...

In promoting health care reform in 2009, President Obama stated, “when it comes to health care spending, we are on an unsustainable course that threatens the financial stability of families, businesses and government itself.” We are still on that “unsustainable course” thirteen years...

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...