Many discussions of managed care, as well as policy making and research efforts, treat managed care with a broad brush, forcing a wide variety of organizations into a single framework that facilitates discussion but abstracts from a number of key issues. Although it may be instructive to conduct...

Many questions about technology growth and development in health care call for a broad-based characterization of technology availability. In this paper, we explore the possibility of producing aggregated estimates of technology availability by constructing an index of technology availability in...

During the last two decades, the treatment of infertility has improved dramatically. These treatments, however, are expensive and rarely covered by insurance, leading many states to adopt regulations mandating that health insurers cover them. In this paper, we explore the effects of benefit...

June 1998 (Revised) <p> Concerns about the health of poor children and mothers produced major changes in the Medicaid public insurance program during the last decade, including expansions in program eligibility and increases in fees paid to physicians who care for covered patients. We examine...</p>

Increases in the activity of managed care organizations may have "spillover effects," influencing the entire health care delivery system's performance, so that care for both managed-care and non-managed-care patients is affected. Some proposals for Medicare reform have incorporated spillover...

The challenges consumers face in acquiring and using information are a defining feature of health care markets. In this paper, we examine demand for health information on the Internet. We find that individuals in poor health are more likely than those in better health to use the Internet to...

Although doctors and hospitals own their patients' medical records, state and federal laws require that they provide patients with a copy at “reasonable cost.†We examine the effects of state laws that cap the fees that doctors and hospitals are allowed to charge patients for a copy of...