As the Irish health system embarks upon its first major structural reorganisation in over 30 years, developments within this system over the past two decades are assessed. Real cuts in health expenditure achieved in the 1980s contrast sharply with the unprecedented increase in resources devoted...

Approximately one-third of the Irish population receive all medical care services free. GPs (general practitioners) treat both public and private patients, and are remunerated on a fee-for service basis by the state for public patients, and by the patient, at a higher rate, for private patients....

To test a number of hypotheses regarding determinants of long-run trends Abstract in nondefense government expenditures, regression equations were estimated by the method of least squares using the following dependent variables: government purchases of goods and services (i.e., resource-using...

This article presents a methodology for analyzing public expenditure growth to test for structural change. It subjects a version of Peacock and Wiseman's displacement hypothesis to a test based on the idea that the hypothesis involves a structural break. The method is based on a conventional...

This study examines 65,784 obstetric deliveries occuring in 1986 in New York State, attended by 1740 different physicians. Cesarean section rates, and rates of reporting of dystocia and fetal distress, are calculated by physicians' year of graduation from medical school, U.S. or foreign medical...