High and Rising Health Care Costs: Demystifying U.S. Health Care Spending

Reviews the data used to measure U.S. healthcare costs and examines long- and short-term trends, whether costs are too high, how they compare to those of other developed nations, and what factors are driving the growth. Includes policy implications

Efficiency and Quality: Controlling Cost Growth in Health Care Reform

Outlines options for slowing the growth of healthcare spending, including improving the Medicare fee schedule, payment for episodes of care, multi-provider episode payments, the tax treatment of private insurance, and comparative effectiveness research

Growth Rates in Health Care Costs Are High and Stable

Highlights findings from a study of growth rates in health insurance premiums and healthcare spending in 1995-2006, factors behind the trends, and changes in the components of healthcare costs

Triple Disruptions in The Galactic Centre: Captured and Ejected Binaries, Rejuvenated Stars, and Correlated Orbits

The disruption of a binary star by a massive black hole (MBH) typically leads to the capture of one component around the MBH and the ejection of its companion at a high velocity, possibly producing a hypervelocity star. The high fraction of observed triples ($\sim10$% for F/G/K stars and $\sim50$% for OB stars) give rise to the possibility of the disruption of triples by a MBH. Here we study this scenario, and use direct $N$-body integrations to follow the orbits of thousands of triples, during and following their disruption by a MBH (of $4\times10^6$ M$_\odot$, similar to the MBH existing in the Galactic Centre; SgrA$^*$). We find that triple disruption can lead to several outcomes and we discuss their relative frequency. Beside the ejection/capture of single stars, similar to the binary disruption case, the outcomes of triple disruption include the ejection of hypervelocity binaries; capture of binaries around the MBH; collisions between two or all of the triple components (with low enough velocities that could lead to their merger); and the capture of two or even three stars at close orbits around the MBH. The orbits of single stars captured in a single disruption event are found to be correlated. The eccentricity of the mutual orbits of captured/ejected binaries is typically excited to higher values. Stellar evolution of captured/ejected binaries may later result in their coalescence/strong interaction and the formation of hypervelocity blue stragglers or merger remnants in orbits around SgrA*. Finally, the capture of binaries close to the MBH can replenish and increase the binary frequency near the MBH, which is otherwise very low.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, submitted to MNRA

A Health Plan Work in Progress: Hospital-Physician Price and Quality Transparency

Assesses health plans' efforts to provide consumers with price and quality comparisons on hospitals and doctors in twelve metropolitan areas. Looks at the plans' motives and strategies, as well as the limitations, risks, and challenges of transparency

Bundling Payment for Episodes of Hospital Care: Issues and Recommendations for the New Pilot Program in Medicare

Outlines the 2010 healthcare reform's provision to launch a pilot project for bundling Medicare payments around hospitalization episodes of care, the rationale for hospital episode bundling, and guidance on designing an effective pilot program

Physician Acceptance of New Medicare Patients Stabilizes in 2004-05

Measures access to physicians by Medicare beneficiaries in recent years, in relation to the decline in the number of U.S. physicians accepting patients during the late 1990s. Explores factors that determine why a physician accepts new patients

The multipurpose composite flywheel

The twin disk composite flywheel shows that the techniques that were developed at Rocketdyne to successfully design, fabricate, and test high-speed rotating machinery (turbopumps) for rocket engines could be used to develop advanced flywheels. This flywheel not only demonstrates that successful mating of metal flywheel characteristics (high torque and ruggedness) and composite flywheel characteristics (lightweight and high energy density) can be achieved, but the unique design lends itself to easy adaptation to other configurations