Health Care Policy and Reform

The use of medications such as antihistamines and NSAIDs, which are taken intermittently to treat symptoms, was sensitive to co-payment changes. Other medications—antihypertensive, antiasthmatic, antidepressant, antihyperlipidemic, antiulcerant, and antidiabetic agents—also demonstrated significant price responsiveness. The reduction in use of medications for individuals in ongoing care was more modest. Still, significant increases in co-payments raise concern […]

Today, 25 percent of all caregivers of elderly are adult children.  However, while the parents of the Baby Boom generation had three children per household on average, the Boomers themselves only have two.  This project uses the Health and Retirement Study to assess how the number of children a person has affects the demand for formal long-term […]

This is the 17th edition of the American Medical Association’s “Competition in health insurance: A comprehensive study of U.S. markets.” This report presents new data on the degree of competition in health insurance markets across the country, It is intended to help researchers, policymakers, and federal and state regulators identify markets where consolidation among health […]

Higher prices are increasingly recognized as a significant cause of the outlier status of the United States in health care expenditures. At the same time, various explanations are often invoked to justify higher prices as rational or even defensible. We evaluate—and mostly counter—potential explanations of why health care prices are higher in the United States: […]

Medical services are expensive. There is no getting around it. The average family health insurance premium in the US is approaching $20,000. By one estimate, average family premiums could rise to 100 percent of US median household income by 2033 if trends continue. What is more troubling is that there is considerable evidence that nearly one-third of health spending is […]