Health Care Consumers: Choices and Constraints

This article summarizes the research and data currently available on different dimensions of consumer choice. These dimensions include not only whether to participate in a health care plan and which plan to select if given a choice but also the decisions that lead to having a choice and the implications of making the choice. Data are presented on what choices consumers face, how many are given what kinds of choices, what constraints they face, what we know about how they make these choices, and what information they are given and what they use. The majority of Americans are offered some kind of health insurance plan either through their place of employment or as a dependent on someone else’s employer-sponsored health plan. About half of those offered health insurance are offered a choice, usually of only two or three plans. The majority elect to participate in one of those plans.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68465/2/10.1177_107755879905600102.pd

How Risky Is R and D? A Financial Approach.

In order to understand the relationship between market structure and the risk of innovation, this paper proposes a synthesis between the capital asset pricing model and simple models of industrial organization. The theoretical section of the paper discusses the real determinants of R&D riskiness, finding that several unique features of R&D assets may influence their systematic risk, including their strategic nature and random arrival as well as the firm's industry context. The empirical results suggest that there is a considerable systematic risk premium associated with R&D that can be partially offset by firm size and market concentration. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

Charity Care by Non-profit Hospitals: The Price of Tax-exempt Debt

In this paper, we study the effects of tax-exempt debt on the supply of charity care of non-profit hospitals. We hypothesize that hospitals using tax-exempt rather than taxable debt are forced to provide higher levels of charity care as a condition for gaining access to the tax-exempt market. The study uses a panel of 189 California non-profit hospitals. Hospital uncompensated care is regressed on the level of uncompensated care by other hospitals in the market, lagged values of tax-exempt and taxable debt and other control variables.The magnitude of the tax-exempt bond subsidy has a positive effect on the flow of charity care and varies positively with the charity care provided by other hospitals. We conclude that subsidies provided by tax-exempt debt are an effective media to increase the supply of charity care by hospitals. Regulators can use competition between non-profit hospitals in order to enforce the desired behavior.Tax-EXEMPT, Charity Care,