Health insurance coverage : who had a lapse between 1991 and 1993?

Mode of access: Internet.

Health insurance coverage : who had a lapse between 1990 and 1992?

Mode of access: Internet.

Health insurance coverage, 1993.

Mode of access: Internet.

AIDS and health insurance : an OTA survey /

Mode of access: Internet.

National health interview survey questionnaires.

Mode of access: Internet.

National Health Interview Survey /

Mode of access: Internet.

Private health insurance to supplement medicare /

Includes bibliographical references.

National Health Service Corps act of 1970. Hearing, Ninety-first Congress, second session, on S. 4106 and related bills. August 28, 1970.

Mode of access: Internet.

Background information concerning the Emergency health insurance extension act of 1975 : background information /

At head of title: 94th Congress, 1st session. Committee print.

Market failure in long-term private health insurance markets: a proposed solution

Recently, private health insurance rates have declined in many countries. In places requiring community rating in their health insurance premiums, a major cause is age-based adverse selection. However, even in countries without community rating, a de facto type of partial community rating tends to occur. In this note, a modified version of Pauly et al.'s guaranteed renewability model, which addresses the problem of age-based adverse selection (Pauly et al., 1995) is presented. Their model is extended from three to 35 periods. Also, probabilities are allowed to increase by age for low-risk types using actual age-based probabilities. This extension of their work shows that private health insurance contracts available stray far from optimal contracts that deal with age-based adverse selection. This suggests that government actions to affect private insurance options are warranted.

Lifetime Subsidies in Australian Private Health Insurance Markets with Community Rating

This paper considers the problem of inducing low-risk individuals of all ages to buy private health insurance in Australia. Our proposed subsidy scheme improves upon the age-based penalty scheme under the current "Australian Lifetime Cover" (LTC) scheme. We generate an alternative subsidy profile that obviates adverse selection in private health insurance markets with mandated, age-based, community rating. Our proposal is novel in that we generate subsidies that are both risk- and age-specific, based upon actual risk probabilities. The approach we take may prove useful in other jurisdictions where the extant law mandates community rating in private health insurance markets. Furthermore, our approach is useful in jurisdictions that seek to maintain private insurance to complement existing universal public systems.

External audit in the National Health Service in England and Wales:a study of an oversight body's control of auditor remuneration

In the National Health Service (NHS) in England and Wales an oversight body, the Audit Commission (AC), defines the scope of the external auditors’ work, appoints the auditors and has oversight of their fees and audit quality. This heavily regulated audit regime mitigates some of the deficiencies observed in high profile corporate failures. Independence, it has been argued, is influenced by the total auditor remuneration paid by the client. In this study we examine total auditor remuneration in a regulated market which seeks to ensure audit independence and audit quality. In particular we undertake rigorous analysis of auditor remuneration by the type of auditor: We place emphasis on the differentiation between private sector firms and the AC’s in-house auditors (District Audit). Individual private audit firms charge premiums (up to 16%) for particular audit work in identified locations, but no premiums were found when we examined total auditor remuneration. The regime appears to permit efficient operation of the audit market while safeguarding both audit independence and standards.

Technical efficiency:efficiency, change, technical progress and productivity growth in the national health systems of continental African countries

In May 2006, the Ministers of Health of all the countries on the African continent, at a special session of the African Union, undertook to institutionalise efficiency monitoring within their respective national health information management systems. The specific objectives of this study were: (i) to assess the technical efficiency of National Health Systems (NHSs) of African countries for measuring male and female life expectancies, and (ii) to assess changes in health productivity over time with a view to analysing changes in efficiency and changes in technology. The analysis was based on a five-year panel data (1999-2003) from all the 53 countries of continental Africa. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) - a non-parametric linear programming approach - was employed to assess the technical efficiency. Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (MTFP) was used to analyse efficiency and productivity change over time among the 53 countries' national health systems. The data consisted of two outputs (male and female life expectancies) and two inputs (per capital total health expenditure and adult literacy). The DEA revealed that 49 (92.5%) countries' NHSs were run inefficiently in 1999 and 2000; 50 (94.3%), 48 (90.6%) and 47 (88.7%) operated inefficiently in 2001, 2002, and 2003 respectively. All the 53 countries' national health systems registered improvements in total factor productivity attributable mainly to technical progress. Fifty-two countries did not experience any change in scale efficiency, while thirty (56.6%) countries' national health systems had a Pure Efficiency Change (PEFFCH) index of less than one, signifying that those countries' NHSs pure efficiency contributed negatively to productivity change. All the 53 countries' national health systems registered improvements in total factor productivity, attributable mainly to technical progress. Over half of the countries' national health systems had a pure efficiency index of less than one, signifying that those countries' NHSs pure efficiency contributed negatively to productivity change. African countries may need to critically evaluate the utility of institutionalising Malmquist TFP type of analyses to monitor changes in health systems economic efficiency and productivity over time. African national health systems, per capita total health expenditure, technical efficiency, scale efficiency, Malmquist indices of productivity change, DEA