Making markets work: Five steps to a better health care system: Five policy reforms to harness the power of markets

Health Affairs

Volumn 24, Issue 6, 2005, Pages 1447-1457

  Cogan, John F ^a   Hubbard, R Glenn ^b,c,d   Kessler, Daniel P ^a,c,e  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

^c NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH   (United States)

^d AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE   (United States)

^e STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC ASPECT; HEALTH CARE DELIVERY; HEALTH INSURANCE; INFORMATION SYSTEM; LEGAL ASPECT; MALPRACTICE; ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT; POLICY; PRACTICE GUIDELINE; REVIEW; TAX; UNITED STATES;

DELIVERY OF HEALTH CARE; ECONOMIC COMPETITION; EFFICIENCY, ORGANIZATIONAL; GUIDELINES; INFORMATION MANAGEMENT; INSURANCE, HEALTH; MALPRACTICE; PUBLIC POLICY; TAXES; UNITED STATES;

EID: 28444476201     PISSN: 02782715     EISSN: 02782715     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.24.6.1447     Document Type: Review

References (18)

1. E.B. Keeler et al., The Demand for Episodes of Treatment in the Health Insurance Experiment, Report no. R-3454-HHS (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, March 1988). Amounts in the text are in 1984 dollars. In 2004 dollars (inflated using the CPI), the amounts are equivalent to an increase in deductibles from $364 to $909.
2. M. Eichner, "Demand for Medical Care: What People Pay Does Matter," American Economic Review 88, no. 2 (1988): 117-121.
3. J.P. Newhouse and the Insurance Experiment Group, Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).
4. Our calculations assume that the new tax deduction would apply to all medical and dental expenses that can now be deducted under the IRS's minimum 7.5 percent rule.
5. For example, see W. Jack and L. Sheiner, "Welfare-Improving Health Expenditure Subsidies," American Economic Review 876, no. 1 (1997): 206-221.
6. J.F. Cogan, R.G. Hubbard, and D.P. Kessler, "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Five Steps to a Better Health Care System" (Washington, D.C./Stanford, Calif.: AEI/Hoover Institution Press, 2005). This estimate is based on an elasticity of expenditures with respect to the overall price of health care of -0.45.
7. See, for example, M. Feldstein and B. Friedman, "Tax Subsidies, the Rational Demand for Insurance, and the Health Care Crisis," Journal of Public Economics 7, no. 2 (1977): 155-178.
8. C.E. Phelps, "Large Scale Tax Reform: The Example of Employer-Paid Health Insurance Premiums," Working Paper no. 35 (Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester, 1986).
9. The limit on HSA contributions is over and above any deduction for current health expenses.
10. S.S. Laudicina, J. Gardner, and N. Stovall, State Legislative Health Care and Insurance Issues: 2002 Survey of Plans (Washington: Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association, 2002);
11. and V.C. Bunce and J.P. Wieske, Health Insurance Mandates in the States (Arlington, Va.: Council for Affordable Health, 2004).
12. Bunce and Wieske, Health Insurance Mandates.
13. Congressional Budget Office, Increasing Small-Firm Health Insurance Coverage through Association Health Plans and Healthmarts (Washington: CBO, 2000).
14. F.A. Sloan and C.J. Conover, "Effects of State Reforms on Health Insurance Coverage of Adults," Inquiry 35, no. 3 (1998): 280-293.
15. L. Achman and D. Chollet, Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools (New York: Commonwealth Fund, August 2001).
16. K. Simon, "The Effect of State Insurance Regulations on Price and Availability of Health Benefits in Small Firms," Working Paper (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2000).
17. We thank Robert Reischauer and a thoughtful referee for alerting us to several of these.
18. M. Pauly, A. Percy, and B. Herring, "Individual versus Job-based Health Insurance: Weighing the Pros and Cons," Health Affairs 18, no. 6 (1999): 28-44.