TY  - JOUR
AU  - Feldstein,Martin
TI  - Balancing the Goals of Health Care Provision
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12279
PY  - 2006
Y2  - June 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12279
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12279.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Martin S. Feldstein
President Emeritus
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02138-5398
Tel: 617/868-3905
Fax: 617/868-7194
E-Mail: msfeldst@nber.org
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2006-06-05
AB  - A desirable system for providing and financing health care would achieve three goals: (1) preventing the deprivation of care because of a patient's inability to pay; (2) avoiding wasteful spending; and (3) allowing care to reflect the different tastes of individual patients. Although it is not possible to realize fully all three of these goals, they can condition and inform the design of a good system for financing health care.  This paper discusses the application of these goals in more detail and use them to consider a reform of the system of Health Savings Accounts that was enacted as part of the 2003 Medicare legislation and, separately,  the challenge posed by the very expensive treatments for rare diseases that are becoming more common.
ER  -