Search Results
Conference Paper
What is good care, and what is bad?
National health care goals generally include providing broad access to appropriate amounts of high-quality health care at appropriate cost to the ultimate payers. Yet all countries, regardless of how they deliver and finance health care, struggle to achieve a sustainable balance among the implicit tradeoffs. Does this struggle stem from the limited scope for competition in health care or from information asymmetries? Or does it simply reflect the inherent difficulty of measuring health care output and quality? Alternatively, does it result from deep-seated human behavior - a tendency for ...
Conference Paper
Costs, benefits, and rationing of health care: comments on Cutler’s “What Is Good Care, and What Is Bad?”
National health care goals generally include providing broad access to appropriate amounts of high-quality health care at appropriate cost to the ultimate payers. Yet all countries, regardless of how they deliver and finance health care, struggle to achieve a sustainable balance among the implicit tradeoffs. Does this struggle stem from the limited scope for competition in health care or from information asymmetries? Or does it simply reflect the inherent difficulty of measuring health care output and quality? Alternatively, does it result from deep-seated human behavior - a tendency for ...
Newsletter
The 2009 Health Care Leader Forum - a conference summary
On March 30?31, 2009, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the Detroit Regional Chamber co-sponsored the third annual forum on health care. This year?s program focused on the role of employers in improving the health care system in terms of cost, quality, and accessibility.
Briefing
Who are the uninsured, and why are they uninsured?
Since 2000, the number of uninsured Americans, both nationally and in New England, has risen by nearly 20 percent. In 2005, 46.6 million Americans and 1.5 million New Englanders lacked health insurance. For millions more Americans, the prospect of losing coverage is a tangible and real concern.
Conference Paper
Comments on Enthoven’s “The U.S. Experience with Managed Care and Managed Competition”
This session will provide an overview of the U.S. health care system with an emphasis on trends observed since the reforms of the early 1990s. ; How has the health care system adjusted to the introduction of market-oriented medicine? And what have been the consequences for access to care, health care costs (public and private), and the quality of care over the past decade? How does the U.S. health care system measure up in international comparisons, for instance? Does managed care work as its advocates expected or have inappropriate consumer and provider incentives undermined this experiment? ...
Journal Article
Building healthier communities from the ground up
This issue of Banking and Community Perspectives focuses on some nonlegislative efforts to foster healthier communities, particularly in low- and moderate-income areas. These efforts are led by both public and private organizations across the Federal Reserve's Eleventh District.
Conference Paper
The U.S. experience with managed care and managed competition
This session will provide an overview of the U.S. health care system with an emphasis on trends observed since the reforms of the early 1990s. ; How has the health care system adjusted to the introduction of market-oriented medicine? And what have been the consequences for access to care, health care costs (public and private), and the quality of care over the past decade? How does the U.S. health care system measure up in international comparisons, for instance? Does managed care work as its advocates expected or have inappropriate consumer and provider incentives undermined this experiment? ...
Newsletter
U.S. health care insurance and the uninsured
With continuing increases in both health care spending and the number of Americans who are uninsured, everyone seems to have an opinion on how to rein in costs and provide better coverage. This month's Newsletter offers an overview of why costs are so high and what can be done to improve the situation.
Working Paper
Physician Payments Under Health Care Reform
This study assesses the impact of major health insurance reform in Massachusetts on the prices of services paid to physicians in the privately insured market. We estimate that the reform caused physician payments to increase at least 10.8 percentage points. This impact occurred while the legislation was materializing but before the final compromised version of the reform was enacted in April 2006. This finding is consistent with prices being set in a forward-looking manner, in anticipation of the reform. Overall, one-sixth of physician service price growth in Massachusetts between 2003 and ...
Conference Paper
Comments on Madrian’s “The U.S. Health Care System and Labor Markets”
This session will explore the impact of the U.S. health care system on U.S. labor markets. ; Why do employers believe that rising health care costs are a major cause for concern when economists insist that workers are the ones who actually bear the costs? What are the implications of large health care liabilities for the long-run viability of U.S. employers? How do rising health care costs affect employment and compensation decisions and labor mobility? Do behavioral insights shed any light on these issues?