Medical technological progress has been shown to be the main driver of health care costs. A key policy question is whether new treatment options are worth the additional costs. In this paper we assess the causal effect of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), a major new heart...

Using a randomized field experiment, we show that health care specialists cream-skim patients by their expected profitability. In the German two-tier system, outpatient reimbursement rates for both public and private insurance are centrally determined but are more than twice as high for the...

Using a randomized field experiment, we show that health care specialists cream-skim patients by their expected profitability. In the German two-tier system, outpatient reimbursement rates for both public and private insurance are centrally determined but are more than twice as high for the...

The objectives of this paper are to identify the driving forces of health system performance in Germany as measured by the number of avoidable deaths from ischaemic heart diseases (IHD) and to assess the extent to which health authorities can influence health system performance. We find health...

Healthcare utilization varies widely between regions. Yet, the causes of regional variation are still not well understood, and they can also differ between countries and institutional settings. We exploit patient migration to examine which share of regional variation in ambulatory care use in...

Background: International studies (e.g. Asplin et al. 2005) show that waiting time for inpatient treatment depends on how the claimed services are financed. In Germany there is an ongoing debate about the assumption that privately insured patients do not only receive more benefits than members...

Canadian provincial healthcare systems fare poorly compared to peer countries according to new research from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Reality Bites: How Canada's Healthcare System Compares to its International Peers,” authors Colin Busby, Ramya Muthukaran and Aaron Jacobs examine how the...

Albertans carry a $580 billion fiscal burden – the future tax bill for increased healthcare costs over the next half-century – and should prepare now for the coming demographic squeeze, says a report released today from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Managing the Costs of Healthcare for an...

British Columbians carry a $384 billion fiscal burden – the future tax bill for increased healthcare costs over the next half-century – and should prepare now for the coming demographic squeeze, says a report released today from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Healthcare and an Aging...