AN NBER PUBLICATION ISSUE: No. 3, October 2021

The Bulletin on Health

Summarizes recent NBER Working Papers pertaining to health topics. It is distributed digitally three times a year and is free.
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Medicaid Managed Care Outcomes Vary with Patient Health
In 2016, 80 percent of Medicaid enrollees received their insurance through private managed care plans. These private plans take responsibility for providing medical care for Medicaid recipients in exchange for a fixed per-enrollee payment from the state. These arrangements could restrain Medicaid spending if private firms had a greater incentive to control costs than the government does. However, such cost savings could have implications for patient health. Outcomes...

More of the Bulletin on Health

Urgent Care Centers Raise Medicare Costs
The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Tobacco Taxation
Affiliates' Research in Medical Journals, Fall 2021
List of Affiliates' Work in Medical and Other Journals with Pre-Publication Res…
The Bulletin on Health - Browse the Archive

Research Summaries

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Urgent Care Centers Raise Medicare Costs
Article
Urgent care centers (UCCs) have proliferated in recent years: the share of zip codes served by a UCC rose from 28 percent in 2006 to 91 percent in 2019.  The implications of this market expansion for overall health care costs are not obvious. If UCCs divert patients from costly emergency departments (EDs), then UCC access could reduce costs. But, if UCCs initiate demand for additional services, they could raise costs. Researchers Janet Currie, Anastasia Karpova, and...
Impact of Teenage Exposure to Cigarette Taxes on Adult Mortality
The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Tobacco Taxation
Article
In two recent NBER working papers, researchers use variation in the taxation of tobacco products — including both cigarettes and e-cigarettes — to better understand tobacco use patterns and their implications. Both studies focus on state and local variation in the magnitude of tobacco taxes during adolescence, the age range when many users initiate smoking or vaping habits. In Intended and Unintended Effects of E-cigarette Taxes on Youth Tobacco Use (NBER Working...
Featured Researcher: Nolan H. Miller
Article
Nolan H. Miller is a research associate in the NBER’s programs on Health Care and on Environment and Energy Economics. He is the Daniel and Cynthia Mah Helle Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Miller’s research addresses economic questions related to health and the environment. In ongoing work, he is examining the effects of temperature, pollution, and natural disasters on health care use and health outcomes among Medicare...
Affiliates' Research in Medical Journals, Fall 2021
Article
Health and Economic Outcomes Up to Three Years after a Workplace Wellness Program: A Randomized Controlled Trial Song Z, Baicker K. Health Affairs 40(6), June 2021, pp. 951−960.   Workplace wellness programs have been adopted by most large and many small US employers to try to improve employee health, lower health care spending, and improve productivity. While observational studies have suggested positive financial returns, in randomized trials these programs...

The Bulletin on Health summarizes selected recent NBER Working Papers. It is distributed digitally to economists and other interested persons for informational and discussion purposes. The Bulletin is not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely with attribution of source.

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