"During the past two decades, several public and private organizations have initiated programs to report publicly on the quality of medical care provided by specific hospitals and physicians. These programs have sparked broad debate among economists and policy makers concerning whether, and to...

This paper examines the sources of expenditure growth in heart attack treatment. We first show that essentially all of cost growth is a result of the diffusion of particular intensive technologies; the prices paid for a given level of technology have been constant or falling over time. We then...

This paper examines the causes and consequences of reductions in cardiovascular disease mortality, and in particular heart attack mortality, over the past several decades. Analysis of data from Medicare and review of the clinical literature indicate that a large share of the recent decline in...

There is little empirical evidence to explain why disability declined among the elderly over the past 20 years. In this paper, we explore the role of improved medical care for cardiovascular disease on health status improvements over time. We show that the incidence of cardiovascular disease...