Search Results
Newsletter
Creating value-based competition in health care
On April 14?15, 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Detroit Regional Chamber co-sponsored the second annual forum on health care. This year's program focused on how the health care system could be improved in terms of cost, quality, and accessibility.
Working Paper
Learning and the value of information: the case of health plan report cards
We estimate a Bayesian learning model in order to assess the value of health plan performance information and the extent to which the explicit provision of information about product quality alters consumer behavior. We take advantage of a natural experiment in which health plan performance information for HMOs was released to employees of a Fortune 50 company for the first time. Our empirical work indicates that the release of information had a small but statistically significant effect on health plan choices, causing 3.1% of employees to switch health plans. Although consumers were willing ...
Journal Article
Economists weigh all the costs of health care
In evaluating health-care plans, economists look for the not-so-obvious costs, such as those related to adverse side effects, patients' lost productivity and even volunteers' time.
Journal Article
Drug prices under the medicare drug discount card program
In early 2004, the U.S. government initiated the Medicare Drug Discount Card Program (MDDCP), which allowed card subscribers to obtain discounts on prescription drugs. Pharmacy-level prices were posted on the program website weekly with the hope or promoting competition among card sponsors by facilitating consumer access to prices. A large panel of pharmacy-level price data collected from this website indicates that price dispersion across cards persisted throughout the program. Prices declined initially when consumers were choosing cards, but rose later when subscribers were restricted to ...
Journal Article
Public-private cost shifts in nursing home care
This article presents estimates of the degree to which individuals paying privately for nursing home services are being asked to subsidize their states Medicaid program. Recently published data permit making some first rough estimates of the extent of this activity. Although these crude measures must be interpreted with great care, the data suggest that cost-shifting activity is widespread and sizable. ; Because, as the article shows, cost-shifting activity undermines policy makers efforts to regulate nursing home costs, the article suggests that private patients should not be asked to ...
Journal Article
Analyzing the relationship between health insurance, health costs, and health care utilization
Using data the Health and Retirement Survey and the Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old, this article provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of whether an individual purchases health insurance. The authors describe the relationship between health costs and health care utilization of individuals aged 50 and explore how these factors vary with access to health insurance.
Journal Article
The rising cost of medical care and its effect on inflation
Report
What do we really know about trends in outpatient medical expenditures for children, 1977-1987?
This analysis of outpatient medical expenditures for children identifies which children experience a relative decline in medical expenditures between 1977 and 1987. The paper also evaluates some standard methodologies used in medical demand estimation. Our semiparametic approach models expenditures simultaneously with the choice of insurance plan and the decision to incur any expenditures. Children in poor families and Hispanic children witness a decline in expenditures relative to other children. Children on Medicaid and black children experience stable expenditures over time. These results ...
Newsletter
The value chain case for health care reform - a conference summary
On April 24?25, 2007, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Detroit Regional Chamber sponsored a two-day forum examining a ?value chain? perspective of health care delivery in the U.S. The program discussed how a value chain evaluation might lead to improvement in health care quality, reduction in costs, and increased user accessibility.
Journal Article
Hospital services to go