K E Thorpe

..Funding for the Medicare component could be provided through the budget of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. The proposal in its totality has the potential for improving health outcomes and reducing costs...

..A rise in population risk factors and the introduction of new technologies underlie these trends...

..To be effective, reforms should focus on health promotion, public health interventions, and the cost-effective use of medical care...

..Failure to collect more timely and comprehensive data will undermine ongoing efforts for controlling the growth in costs and improving quality...

..5 percentage points in less than ten years. This raises important questions about the "fit" of how Medicare pays for services for complex medical management...

..To examine the factors responsible for the rise in health- care spending in the United States over the past 15 years...

..Disease prevalence and rates of medication treatment are much higher in the United States than in these European countries. Efforts to reduce the U.S. prevalence of chronic illness should remain a key policy goal...

..Key to the reform's political success was the recognition by both sides that it focused on issues of bipartisan concern: cost control through the effective management and prevention of disease...

..Reform strategies that address this issue are not inherently partisan and may prove to be a fruitful starting point for launching the debate...

..Health reform must address changed health needs through evidence-based community prevention, care coordination, and support for patient self-management...

..It should also detail how best practices in finance and payment, in the organization and delivery of care, and in prevention can be expanded nationally...

..In this context we propose that Medicare expand its new wellness benefit to include reimbursement for this and other qualifying behavior change programs...

..Increases in obesity prevalence alone account for 12 percent of the growth in health spending...

..This analysis finds that premiums in states that cap awards are 17.1 percent lower than in states that don't cap. At issue, however, is whether these stopgap solutions promote the goals of the U.S. liability system...

..For four of the conditions, a rise in treated prevalence, rather than rising treatment costs per case or population growth, accounted for most of the spending growth...

..To examine the effect of premiums and benefits on the health plan choices of older enrollees who choose Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) health plans as their primary payer...

..A key question is whether federal/state public health programs aimed at increasing screening and other public policies (e.g., welfare reform, managed care) have affected their receipt of these preventive services...

..Changes in the ACA that will affect access to and payment for cancer care among Medicare and dually eligible patients are outlined in this article...

..g. diabetes). We provide some evidence that increases in treated prevalence unexplained by changes in the underlying clinical incidence of disease are driven by increased detection and treatment of patients with 'subclinical' illness...

..These years focus on changes pre/post a 1998 policy change for Medicare beneficiaries that reduced their out-of-pocket costs for colorectal screening...

..Information technology (IT) has been identified as a potential tool for improving the safety of health care delivery...

..While the magnitude of spending on end-of-life care is striking, it is difficult to determine if expenditures are wasteful or simply reflect the inherent uncertainty facing physicians...

..S. rates. U.S. residents are more likely to be screened at younger ages, when the expected benefit from early detection is the greatest, but also at older ages, when the expected benefit is declining...

..Those who do switch plans are likely to switch to a different plan in the same sector...

..We present evidence to show that spending differences are due in part or completely to differences in use, which suggests that raising coverage rates will improve cancer treatment...

..Our results highlight the fact that Medicare should expect modest savings from reforming the program. However, other goals of reform, such as establishing more efficient payments to plans, would be achieved...

..We find that there is little risk segmentation in the FEHBP and that reducing the premium subsidy would lower government premium spending and slightly increase risk segmentation...

..If M+C were eliminated, nearly a third of its members would end up in traditional Medicare without any additional coverage, and 18 percent would enroll in Medicaid...

..We also find that hospital spending by baby boomers grew more rapidly than that of the elderly, a change in trend that could presage increased spending as this cohort moves into higher-spending age groups...