Financing the efficient delivery of medical services while reducing costs for consumers as well as health care providers is among the most challenging domestic policy problems many countries face. RAND addresses health economics issues through innovative, high-profile research in an effort to improve the efficiency of health care organizations, reduce costs for providers and consumers, and improve financing in health care markets.
It is time for the government in partnership with industry to return to the drawing board to craft a plan that will provide protection for the more than 9 million people who will need care for dementia by 2040, writes Michael D. Hurd.
At the rate that the U.S. population is aging, the total cost of dementia could reach half a trillion dollars a year by 2040. Those who care for impaired relatives and friends are acutely aware of the effects of dementia, and unfortunately they are all too familiar with its costs, writes Kathleen J. Mullen.
While a governor or legislator may disagree with Medicaid expansion for philosophical reasons, the claims that the expansion will be a burden on states' economies seem misguided given the full range of projected economic impacts on the states, writes Carter C. Price.
Better understanding of how malaria reduction affects different households, regions, and economic sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa could allow policymakers to assess alternative intervention strategies and allocate resources more efficiently and effectively.
Removing the constraints on Medicare would not only lead to lower prices at the drugstore, hospital and doctor's office, it could spark a new era of healthcare innovation, says Arthur Kellermann.
The health care “entitlement” we need to reform is the notion that America's health care system is entitled to an ever-growing share of America's wealth, writes Arthur Kellermann.
Given the size of the annual “health care spend”—$2.7 trillion—summing up the savings associated with very minor cost-saving policy changes is likely to achieve significant aggregate savings, writes Jeffrey Wasserman.
The growth of health care costs has slowed dramatically for the third consecutive year but as the economy rebounds, spending growth could skyrocket, says Arthur Kellermann.
At a time when our country is teetering on the edge of a “fiscal cliff,” no challenge in health care is more important than reducing health care spending, writes Arthur L. Kellermann.
Don't forget—an American's odds of living a long and healthy life still depend more on his zip code than his genetic code. That won't change until we make healthcare more affordable, writes Dr. Arthur Kellermann.
What do we have to show for all of this spending? Lots of testing and treatment, but not enough health, writes Art Kellermann.
If the individual mandate were ruled unconstitutional, subsidies and the age structure of premiums should keep enough healthy people in the insurance exchanges to prevent huge spikes in premiums, write Carter C. Price and Christine Eibner.
How close do you think that the health care reform plan would come, in reality, to achieving each goal? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is extremely close, and 1 is not at all close.
The ferocity of the national debate over health care continues to build, and rhetoric has all but replaced reality. People on all sides of the issue appear to want anything but the facts, write Elizabeth McGlynn and Jeffrey Wasserman.
A little-known proposition amid the highly charged health care debate is that properly controlling health care spending could generate economic growth equal to 1 percent of gross domestic product, write Dana Goldman and Neeraj Sood.
President Obama and several Congressional leaders have recently expressed support for the idea of allowing citizens to buy into a public insurance program as part of any health reform legislation. The intensity of the ensuing debate has been fascinating given the lack of specifics that have been offered by either side, writes Elizabeth A. McGlynn.
One reason that health reform proposals always seem to fail is that proponents promise too much. Reformers declare they will improve quality, lower costs and increase access — all at the same time. This mantra is repeated so often that the public tends to believe it is possible, when really it isn't, writes Dana P. Goldman.
The United States will produce more than $14 trillion worth of goods and services this year—truly an astonishing amount. But equally astonishing is that one out of every six of these dollars will go to health care. This is the source of much hand-wringing by policy makers. They worry that we cannot afford to spend so much, and that our national output will suffer as a result. They have it backwards.
Published commentary by RAND staff: Pressure from Rising Health-Care Costs: How Can Consumers Get Relief? in Press-Enterprise.
Adding a flexible drug benefit to Medicare would bring costs down, say Dana Goldman and Geoffrey Joyce in an LA Times commentary.
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