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PubMedDate not supplied

How will changes in health insurance tax policy and employer health plan contributions affect access to health care and health care costs?

OBJECTIVE: To understand how changes in federal taxation of and employer contributions to health insurance benefits affect the decisions of firms to offer insurance, the willingness of households to purchase different health plans, and the resultant health expenditures. DESIGN: Economic policy simulation. SETTING: Secondary data analysis. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 18,343 sampled families (representing 77 million total families throughout the United States) with a working household head from the 1988 Current Population Survey who were not covered by either Medicare, Medicaid, or CHAMPUS (Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services) insurance. INTERVENTIONS: One intervention limits the amounts of tax-free employer contributions to health insurance premiums to 80% of our estimate of the base plan in the market and assumes that employer contributions will also be limited to this maximum. A second intervention eliminates the favorable tax treatment of employer-paid premiums altogether and assumes that employees will pay the full price of insurance. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Change in the number of working families offered employment-based insurance, change in insurance plan choice, and change in medical spending. RESULTS: Capping the favorable tax treatment and employer contributions decreases the number of families offered employment-based insurance by approximately 91,000, increases the number of families selecting the least generous insurance plan from 20% under the current situation to 33%, and reduces overall health spending by less than 2%. By eliminating the tax exemption altogether, the number of families offered employment-based insurance decreases by approximately half a million families, the number of families selecting the least generous plan goes from 20% to 40%, and overall spending falls by about $16 billion. CONCLUSIONS: Eliminating the tax subsidy and limiting employer-paid contributions to the low-cost plan substantially increases the number of low-income uninsured under a voluntary insurance system, decreases overall spending only modestly, but would raise tax revenues by $36 billion. These tax revenues could be used to assist low-income families to obtain insurance coverage.

Competitive Medical Plans↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Health care provision and surgical education in South Africa.

Apartheid policies have led to inequalities in the delivery of health care and the training of surgeons in South Africa. The nation's population of 33 million is comprised of 73.6% Blacks, 14.8% Whites, 8.8% Coloureds, and 2.7% Asians. Only 17% of the population are covered by medical insurance (78% of Whites, 28% of Asians, 26% of Coloureds, 4% of Blacks) that funds the private sector which accounts for 46% of the nation's total health care expenditure of 9.2156 million rand. The remainder receive care from curative state hospital based services, which consume 77% of the public expenditure on health. Preventive and promotive health services account for 23%. Only 3.2% of South Africa's gross national product is spent on health care provision for 80% of the population--well short of the World Health Organization's recommendation of 5.8%. This figure translates into a per capita expenditure of 138, 340, 356, and 597 rands for Blacks, Coloureds, Asians, and Whites, respectively. Eight medical schools produce just over 900 graduates per year, 80% of whom are white. The medium of instruction is English at five (Cape Town, Witwatersrand, Natal, MEDUNSA, and Transkei) and Afrikaans at three (Pretoria, Stellenbosch, and Bloemfontein). Natal and MEDUNSA are creations of apartheid and have graduated almost all the Black South African doctors, of whom only 15 are practicing surgeons. Many universities are cognizant that dramatic change is needed to redress such imbalances, and admission policies are changing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed2003

Trends and patterns of cancer mortality in European countries.

This study aims at documenting differentials in the cancer mortality profile of European countries during the recent process of intense geo-political transformations. The World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe provided information on cancer mortality and several covariates for each country. In contrast with the European Union and Nordic countries, Central and Eastern Europe presented higher current levels and increasing trend of cancer mortality. Age-standardized rates for overall cancer mortality increased at an annual average of 2.43% in Central and Eastern European countries during the period from 1980 to 2001, while the European Union, Nordic countries and Switzerland underwent an average decrease of 7.27% per year. Trends in cancer death rates were associated with indices of welfare and socio-economic status at the country level: gross national product, health expenditure, unemployment, food intake, smoking habits and air pollution. Concurrent with this observation, we registered an extended gap in standings for these figures between richer and poorer European countries. These observations suggest that part of cancer mortality in Central and Eastern Europe could be prevented with current technology and health promotion. The drop of rates in Nordic and Western European countries indicates a progress in cancer control that, regrettably, does not hold for the whole Continent.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Major inequities between district health boards in referred services expenditure: a critical challenge facing the primary health care strategy.

AIMS: This study examines variation between district health boards (DHBs) in expenditure on referred services (ie, pharmaceutical and laboratory services), and compares the gap between budgets as determined by the primary care funding formula and actual expenditure on these services. It also analyses the relationship between population need factors and variation from equity. METHODS: Actual DHB referred services expenditure related to GPs for the period July to November 2001 was obtained from the Ministry of Health and compared with expected expenditure calculated from the funding formula. Percentage difference between actual and expected expenditure was calculated for each DHB. Data were also obtained relating to DHB populations (numbers with community services cards (CSCs), ethnicity, and scores by NZDep96 quintiles) and number of GPs. The data were used to calculate rates for these variables, which were then correlated with percentage variation from equity in DHB referred services expenditure. RESULTS: The analysis showed wide percentage variation from equity between DHBs, with Capital and Coast being 17.5% above and Tairawhiti 23.9% below equity. The analysis also showed a high and significant correlation between this inequity and four measures of disadvantage--population per GP, percentage with CSC, percentage of Maori, and NZDep96 scores--which, together, explained more than 50% of the total variation between DHBs. Population per GP was found to be the most significant predictor of variation. CONCLUSIONS: The inverse care law, ie, that those populations in greatest need are those least likely to receive the services they need, remains a dominant feature of New Zealand s primary care system. This is linked to the gross historical underfunding of access to primary care services. A major redistribution of primary care resources, including GPs, supported by much greater investment in better information and research and development, will be critical to the implementation of the government s Primary Health Care Strategy.

Clinical Laboratory Techniques↗
PubMed1997

Chronic disability trends in elderly United States populations: 1982-1994.

Statistically significant declines in chronic disability prevalence rates were observed in the elderly United States population between the 1982 and 1989 National Long Term Care Surveys (NLTCS). The 1994 NLTCS was used to investigate whether disability rate declines continued to 1994. The 1982, 1984, 1989, and 1994 NLTCS employ the same sample design and instrumentation so that trends in disability can be estimated with minimal sampling and measurement bias. Age (5-year categories from 65 to >95)-specific rates were calculated for the 1982 NLTCS and applied to United States Census Bureau estimates of the 1994 population to calculate chronic disability prevalence rates adjusted for aging in the United States population aged > 65. The 1982 age standardized rates were compared with 1994 NLTCS estimates. The prevalence of disability estimated for 1994 (21.3%) was 3.6% lower than the 1982 age standardized rate (24.9%)-a highly significant reduction (t = -8.5; P << 0.0001). Of the 3.6 percentage point decline in prevalence, 1.7% occurred in the 5 years between 1989 and 1994-compared with the 1.9% decline in the 7 years between 1982 and 1989. Both declines are significant. Because of the shorter time period, the per year decline in disability prevalence from 1989 to 1994 was greater than that from 1982 to 1989. Given the higher acute and long-term care service needs of the disabled elderly population, Medicare, Medicaid, and private health expenditures may be dramatically lower than if declines had not occurred.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2001

The changing economics of HIV care.

New advances in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) monitoring and therapeutics have led to dramatic changes in the course of HIV disease. We evaluated our closed clinic of 425 HIV patients over the period 1995-1998 to determine the cost effectiveness of these changes in care. We found that the costs of antiretroviral therapy tripled over the period of observation, but that these increases were largely offset by major declines in inpatient and home health expenditures. In addition, we found that annual mortality among our HIV patients had declined by 90%. We calculated that the cost per life-year gained is about $17,500, which compares favorably with medical expenditures for renal dialysis or advanced cardiac disease.

Antiviral Agents↗
PubMed2005

A deficient public health system as a contributing cause of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic in mainland China.

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is a newly emerging infectious disease which spread over 32 countries and areas, infected more than 8,000 people and causing more than 900 deaths from November 2002 to August 2003. More than 90% of the SARS cases and death were reported from China. Nevertheless, we still know little about this disease, particularly in etiology. SARS, as an emergency of Public Health System (PHS), alarmed health workers throughout the world proving there is still the potential for an epidemic of an emerging infection both in developed and developing areas. Many reports indicated that the insufficiency of the PHS of China was one of the critical factors contributing to the outbreak of SARS. In this study, we attempt to demonstrate some of the categories of PHS that contributed to the SARS epidemic. Two of the categories studied were the living environment and health resources. In the living environment area, the population and population density were examined. Health resources include the medical facilities, health workers, and per capita public health expenditures. An understanding of these areas is important to prevent future epidemic.

China↗
PubMed2005

Health system outcomes and determinants amenable to public health in industrialized countries: a pooled, cross-sectional time series analysis.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have tried to assess the combined cross-sectional and temporal contributions of a more comprehensive set of amenable factors to population health outcomes for wealthy countries during the last 30 years of the 20th century. We assessed the overall ecological associations between mortality and factors amenable to public health. These amenable factors included addictive and nutritional lifestyle, air quality, public health spending, healthcare coverage, and immunizations. METHODS: We used a pooled cross-sectional, time series analysis with corrected fixed effects regression models in an ecological design involving eighteen member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development during the period 1970 to 1999. RESULTS: Alcohol, tobacco, and fat consumption, and sometimes, air pollution were significantly associated with higher all-cause mortality and premature death. Immunizations, health care coverage, fruit/vegetable and protein consumption, and collective health expenditure had negative effects on mortality and premature death, even after controlling for the elderly, density of practicing physicians, doctor visits and per capita GDP. However, tobacco, air pollution, and fruit/vegetable intake were sometimes sensitive to adjustments. CONCLUSION: Mortality and premature deaths could be improved by focusing on factors that are amenable to public health policies. Tackling these issues should be reflected in the ongoing assessments of health system performance.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

How do they manage? Disabled elderly persons in the community who are not receiving Medicaid long-term care services.

OBJECTIVE: To expand our understanding of how low-income functionally impaired elderly persons are able to remain in the community. DATA SOURCES AND STUDY SETTING: In-person and telephone interviews with 25 elderly individuals who applied for but did not enroll in Connecticut's Home Care Program for Elders (CHCPE). All met the state's nursing home level-of-care criteria. STUDY, DESIGN: In-depth discussions with a small, purposefully selected sample of functionally impaired elderly persons in the community. PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: Many sample members with very high levels of impairment and multiple chronic health conditions remained in the community without CHCPE services because of Medicare home health services combined with extensive levels of informal care. Some sample members, particularly those with more limited informal care networks, did not receive the level of care that they needed. Virtually all were at high risk for medical complications, hospitalizations for acute illnesses, falls, and further loss of functioning. Further, in many cases, informal care networks were overextended, stressed and vulnerable to break down. All but a few of those we interviewed were not receiving services through the waiver program for financial reasons. Most met Medicaid's income criteria but had assets that exceeded Medicaid's $2,000 limit. Several were not participating due to concerns about estate recovery. CONCLUSIONS: Additional formal help is needed to avoid eventual nursing home placement for many sample members. This could be achieved by expanding the availability of case management services and/or relaxing program financial requirements. Further, efforts to reduce Medicare home health expenditures must recognize the heightened vulnerability of many beneficiaries for potentially costly adverse outcomes.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2004

Administrative waste in the U.S. health care system in 2003: the cost to the nation, the states, and the District of Columbia, with state-specific estimates of potential savings.

This report provides nationwide and state-specific estimates of U.S. health care administration spending and potential savings in 2003 were the United States to institute a Canadian-style national health insurance system. The United States wastes more on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all its uninsured. Administrative expenses will consume at least dollar 399.4 billion of a total health expenditure of dollar 1,660.5 billion in 2003. Streamlining administrative overhead to Canadian levels would save approximately dollar 286.0 billion in 2003, dollar 6,940 for each of the 41.2 million Americans who were uninsured as of 2001. This is substantially more than would be needed to provide full insurance coverage. The cost of excess health bureaucracy in individual states is equally striking. For example, Massachusetts, with 560,000 uninsured state residents, could save about dollar 8,556 million in 2003 (dollar 16,453 per uninsured resident of that state) if it streamlined administration to Canadian levels. New Mexico, with 373,000 uninsured, could save dollar 1,500 million on health bureaucracy (dollar 4,022 per uninsured resident). Only a single-payer national health insurance system could garner these massive administrative savings, allowing universal coverage without any increase in total health spending. Because incremental reforms necessarily preserve the current fragmented and duplicative payment structure, they cannot achieve significant bureaucratic savings.

Canada↗
PubMed2006

Guidelines for selecting among different types of bootstraps.

BACKGROUND: The bootstrap has become very popular in health economics. Its success lies in the ease of estimating sampling distribution, standard error and confidence intervals with few or no assumptions about the distribution of the underlying population. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper is three-fold: (1) to provide an overview of four common bootstrap techniques for readers who have little or no statistical background; (2) to suggest a guideline for selecting the most applicable bootstrap technique for your data; and (3) to connect guidelines with a real world example, to illustrate how different bootstraps behave in one model, or in different models. RESULTS: The assumptions of homoscedasticity and normality are key to selecting the best bootstrapping technique. These assumptions should be tested before applying any bootstrapping technique. If homoscedasticity and normality hold, then parametric bootstrapping is consistent and efficient. Paired and wild bootstrapping are consistent under heteroscedasticity and non-normality assumptions. CONCLUSION: Selecting the correct type of bootstrapping is crucial for arriving at efficient estimators. Our example illustrates that if we selected an inconsistent bootstrapping technique, results could be misleading. An insignificant effect of controller treatment on total health expenditures among asthma patients would have been found significant and negative by an improperly chosen bootstrapping technique, regardless of the type of model chosen.

Confidence Intervals↗
PubMed2000

Costs, charges and revenues of elective coronary angioplasty and stenting: the public versus the private system.

OBJECTIVE: To calculate the costs of elective coronary angioplasty and stenting (CAS) in the public and private healthcare systems and to compare these costs with the charges levied and the revenues obtained. DESIGN: A prospective health economics study. SETTING: A tertiary care public hospital and a co-located tertiary care private hospital in the 12 months from February 1998. STUDY POPULATION: 186 consecutive patients (124 public, 62 private) undergoing elective CAS. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome of CAS; exact costs of CAS in the two hospitals; exact charges to private patients; estimated charges in a typical, not co-located, "industry standard private hospital"; estimated costs to the Federal Government of CAS in the public and private system. RESULTS: The immediate and six-month outcomes in the two groups were similar. The average cost of CAS in public patients was $5,516, compared with $5,844 in private patients. The length of stay, number of stents per case and use of nonstent consumables was similar for both groups. Average charges for CAS in patients in the co-located private hospital were $13,347, and estimated average charges for CAS in an industry standard private hospital were $14,978. Estimated current costs to the government for CAS in a public hospital, a co-located private hospital, and an industry standard private hospital were $5664, $5,394 and $6,201, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Despite similar treatments and similar treatment costs, CAS in the private system, as a consequence of the charges levied, is more than twice as expensive as in the public system, with government costs similar for both systems. These data (together with data from other studies showing that CAS is performed more frequently in private patients) suggest that encouraging more people to take out private health insurance will, paradoxically, increase government costs for CAS as well as increasing overall health expenditure.

Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary↗
PubMed1998

Haematology outreach clinics in the Free State and northern Cape.

OBJECTIVE: Evaluation of haematology outreach clinics in the Northern Cape and Free State. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of records from March 1994 to February 1996. SETTING: Central South Africa is sparsely populated. Consultants from Bloemfontein held outpatient clinics in hospitals (with laboratories) in Bethlehem, Kimberley and Kroonstad. SUBJECTS: 117 patients with suspected haematological disease. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Input measures (population, number of clinics and costs), process measures (patient numbers, patients per clinic, new consultations per clinic, patients' domicile, how they were referred, types of diagnoses and number of patients with non-haematological disorders) and output measures (attrition, changes in attendance and savings). MAIN RESULTS: The 84 clinics that were held, with 636 consultations, did not cost the State anything. Only 6% of the 117 patients had no haematological problem. Sixty-eight per cent had chronic haematological neoplasms. In Kimberley most of the patients came from Kimberley Hospital, while most of the patients at the other clinics were referred via Bloemfontein. There was only a 10% attrition rate and only one-third of patients were referred to Bloemfontein. We saved paying patients an estimated R21,260 in transport costs, while saving the State R172,992 by seeing patients at secondary, instead of tertiary, hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: It is cheaper to send a doctor to an outreach clinic than to refer patients to a central facility, provided there is enough work for a doctor at the clinic. It costs the State much less for patients to be seen at a secondary than a tertiary hospital. Positive spin-offs include academic stimulation of doctors and laboratories in the periphery, with more appropriate referrals to teaching hospitals. Weaknesses include poor availability of expensive drugs at the clinics and lack of standardised records. By commuting to outreach clinics, specialists can greatly reduce health expenditure and spread it from tertiary to lower levels. At the same time more patients have access to their services.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed2000

Health-seeking behaviour of individuals with a cough of more than 3 weeks.

Sex inequalities can lead to poorer access to health care and delays to diagnosis of tuberculosis in women. In a population-based survey we assessed health-seeking behaviour in adults with long-term cough. The prevalence of cough was 1% (213) and 2% (279) in men and women, respectively. Women took more health-care actions than men, but chose less qualified providers and reported lower health expenditure per visit. Delay before seeking hospital treatment was longer for women (41 days) than men (19 days; p=0.04), and more men (27; 36%) than women (14; 14%; p=0.0006) reported giving a sputum sample at hospital. Sex-sensitive strategies for tuberculosis control are needed and should take into account sex differences in health-care seeking behaviour as well as a possible sex bias among health-care providers.

Adolescent↗