Tracking Health Care Costs: An Update

Health Affairs

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 151-155

  Ginsburg, Paul B ^a   Pickreign, Jeremy D ^a  

^a CENTER FOR STUDYING HEALTH SYSTEM CHANGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; COST CONTROL; ECONOMICS; FORECASTING; HEALTH CARE COST; HEALTH INSURANCE; HUMAN; INFORMATION PROCESSING; STATISTICS; UNITED STATES;

COST CONTROL; DATA COLLECTION; FORECASTING; HEALTH CARE COSTS; HEALTH EXPENDITURES; HUMANS; INSURANCE, HEALTH; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0344769508     PISSN: 02782715     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.16.4.151     Document Type: Article

References (6)

1. P.B. Ginsburg and J.D. Pickreign, "Tracking Health Care Costs," Health Affairs (Fall 1996): 140-149. The technical discussion in the fall 1996 paper, concerning the choice of data to track and its validation, is not repeated here. This paper focuses on 1996, and we report data from a shorter period and give less emphasis to national health expenditure data, which were not yet available at the time of this writing.
2. Press coverage appears to have been stimulated by a preface to Foster Higgins National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans: Report/1996 (New York: Foster Higgins, 1996), by John Erb. Although the report itself documents continued low premium increases for 1996, the preface describes a series of factors that could push up costs. No systematic data for 1997 have appeared to date.
3. The Milliman and Robertson Health Cost Index is designed to indicate to private insurers the trends in claims that they should expect for a standard policy that does not change over time. The index excludes Medicare spending so as to better reflect the expenses faced by private insurers. Since we use the index to reflect spending in the entire health care system, we offset these adjustments with data to expand the applicability of the index.
4. The fall 1996 paper used the series on national health expenditures that is part of the National Health Accounts database for the discussion of components. But since this update focuses heavily on 1996 and these data are not yet available for that year, we instead use our adaptation of the Milliman and Robertson Health Cost Index.
5. Geoffrey Harris, managing director, Smith Barney, comment at "Profits, Patients, and Health System Change: A Wall Street Perspective," a conference sponsored by the Center for Studying Health System Change, Washington, D.C., 21 March 1997.
6. D.J. Lipson and J.M. De Sa, "Impact of Purchasing Strategies on Local Health Care Systems," Health Affairs (Summer 1996): 62-76.