AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 2, June 2009
The Bulletin on Aging & Health
Health care spending in the U.S. accounts for 16 percent of GDP, a much larger share than in other developed countries. Is this money well spent? On the one hand, several studies have concluded that increases in health care spending over time have yielded dramatic increases in life expectancy. Yet other studies have found that there are marked differences in spending across hospitals and regions and that higher spending is not associated with better outcomes. These...
Article
Employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) plays a central role in the financing of health care in the U.S. Currently, 162 million Americans have ESI, representing over 60 percent of the non-elderly population. ESI dominates the private insurance market, accounting for 90 percent of the market. ESI not only is an important source of insurance coverage for workers and their families, but also affects individuals' employment decisions, including the choice of whether to work, how many...
Article
With annual expenditures of over $600 Billion, Social Security is the largest government program in the U.S. Social Security is also the single largest source of income for the elderly, accounting for 40 percent of all income going to individuals age 65 and above and over 80 percent of income for the poorest quintile of families.
While Social Security is clearly an important source of income for poor families, it is less clear whether the program redistributes income from...