Health Economics Commons^™

Cost Of Living For Older Adults (65+) In Mountain West Metropolitan Statistical Areas, 2024, Anirudh Polagani, Annie Vong, Mohit Pande, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet explores 2024 cost of living data for adults over the age of 65 in the largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) across five Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are sourced from the “Elder Index,” a dashboard that focuses on housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses that collectively reflect the monthly expenses for those over the age of 65. This fact sheet focuses on five MSAs in the Mountain West: Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson- North Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City-Murray, UT.

Essays On Healthcare Regulation And Industrial Regulation, Vitor C. Melo

All Dissertations

The first chapter explores differences in incentives and consequent behavior between for-profit and not-for-profit firms. I investigate a terrible choice nursing homes faced during the pandemic: isolating residents prevents deaths from COVID-19, but increases non-COVID deaths by aggravating mental illnesses such as dementia. I explore how ownership structure led to differences in isolation measures taken and in resultant health outcomes. I model decisions regarding isolation measures as a trade-off between profits and satisfying staff's demands, with not-for-profit managers more constrained in how they consume profits. The model predicts that not-for-profit facilities will have more restrictive isolation measures and, consequently, lower …

Optimizing Costs In Plastic Surgery: A Systematic Review Of Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Applications, Emily L. Isch, Gabrielle Kozlowski, D. Mitchell Self, Theodore E. Habarth-Morales, Sydney Somers, Ahilan Sivaganesan, David Kim, Heather A. Mcmahon, Andrew Newsman, Matthew Jenkins

Department of Surgery Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: The rising complexity and cost of healthcare in plastic surgery, particularly in resource-intensive procedures like free flap and breast reconstruction, pose significant financial challenges. Time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) offers a method to accurately assess these costs by mapping each step of the care cycle based on time and resources consumed. Although TDABC has been utilized in high-cost fields such as neurosurgery and spine surgery, its application in plastic surgery remains underexplored. This systematic review evaluates the literature on TDABC use in plastic surgery to identify key cost drivers and propose strategies for cost-efficiency.

METHODS: A systematic review was conducted …

Assessing The Impact Of Medicaid Expansion On The Labor Market, Healthcare Access, And Health Outcomes During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Kaavya Narayan

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the impact of Medicaid expansion status on labor market outcomes, healthcare access, and health outcomes during COVID-19. Using data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) model, I estimate the effects of Medicaid expansion on unemployment, financial barriers to care, obesity, and poor health before and after the pandemic. The analysis also accounts for state-level political and demographic characteristics, gender, marital status, and education level. My results show that non-expansion states, relative to expansion states of similar political and demographic breakdowns, are significantly more disadvantaged in terms of obesity, poor health, financial …

Evaluating The Dual-Faceted Growth Strategies In The Healthcare Sector: A Comparative Analysis Of Organic Innovation And Inorganic Expansion, Isabel Carter

CMC Senior Theses

In order to stay competitive in an expansionary industry like healthcare, companies must consistently meet market demands for growth. This paper builds an empirical model to identify which growth strategies are most highly rewarded by the public markets. The model consists of a data set of 70 healthcare companies, across various healthcare verticals, to measure market returns from 2010 to 2023. The number of completed acquisitions is used as a proxy to identify each company’s propensity towards a growth strategy. Factors from the Fama-French Model and dummy variables used to signal growth strategy expertise, indicate that firms who invest more …

Certificate Of Need Laws' Effect On Provisions Of Uncompensated Care, Connor Anthony Mostek

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Certificate of need (CON) laws are regulations that require healthcare facilities to seek permission from a state government board to enter a market or expand/modify their established business. Proponents of CON laws claim that, among other things, CON laws protect hospitals and other healthcare providers from competition, allowing them to charge private or fully insured patients more in order to use the profits to “cross-subsidize” free care for low-income and uninsured patients. By employing an unbalanced panel dataset on hospital cost reports for the years 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2019, this study finds that there is no strong evidence that …

Disparities In Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes And Economic Burdens Among Minorities In Southeastern Virginia, Ismail El Moudden, Asra Amidi, Reem Sharaf Alddin, Michael Bittner, Qi Zhang

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology Faculty Publications

Background

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality in the United States, presenting significant public health challenges and financial burdens, particularly in Southeastern Virginia, where African American and Hispanic (AA&H) populations are disproportionately affected.

Methods

This retrospective observational study analyzed data from 30,855 hospital discharges of AA&H patients across Southeastern Virginia from 2016 to 2020, focusing on individuals aged 18 to 85 with cardiovascular diseases. Utilizing the Virginia Health Information database, we examined demographic information, clinical data, and healthcare utilization patterns through hypothesis tests and regression models to explore associations between these variables and the economic impacts of cardiovascular …

Economic Analysis Of Hiv/Aids Treatment Costs And Policies In The U.S. And Canada, William Cramer '28

Best First-Year Seminar Writing

No abstract provided.

Medical Expenditures And The Measurement Of Poverty In The United States, Luke Petach, David Wyant

Faculty Scholarship

Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) we estimate the fraction of the US population that is health poor. A person is health poor if their income prior to paying health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs is above the poverty line, but their income net-of-premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs is below the poverty line. Because resources used to finance health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs are (A) lexicographically preferred and (B) cannot be used to maintain an individual’s standard of living, they should be excluded from official poverty estimates. Approximately 1% to 2% of the US population …

Medical Expenditures And The Measurement Of Poverty In The United States, Luke Petach, David K. Wyant

Funded Scholarship

Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) we estimate the fraction of the US population that is health poor. A person is health poor if their income prior to paying health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs is above the poverty line, but their income net-of-premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs is below the poverty line. Because resources used to finance health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs are (A) lexicographically preferred and (B) cannot be used to maintain an individual’s standard of living, they should be excluded from official poverty estimates. Approximately 1% to 2% of the US population …

Debt And The Medicare Eligibility Discontinuity: Disparate Effects Across Households, Olivia Falck

Honors Theses

Public health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid have been shown to help reduce household debt caused by healthcare costs. The impact of health insurance literacy makes the relationship between public health programs and debt more ambiguous. The increasing complexity of Medicare raises the question of whether cost savings associated with enrollment might be mitigated by the complexity of choosing the ideal plan for those with low health insurance literacy. In this study, I utilize the Medicare eligibility cutoff at age 65 to implement a regression discontinuity design that analyzes the impact of Medicare eligibility on household debt and out …

The Evolution Of The Southern Nevada Healthcare Economy: Building The Unlv Academic Health Center, The Lincy Institute

Lincy Institute Events

With the successful launch of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV and the completion of its medical education building, Southern Nevada is positioned to expand its healthcare infrastructure - and its healthcare economy - to create a comprehensive, integrated healthcare system to serve our fast-growing community. As UNLV moves forward with the development of an integrated academic health center within the Las Vegas Medical District, understanding the economic and social benefits of such a transformational project is important to stakeholders throughout the region.

The Lincy Institute hosted representatives of Tripp Umbach - the nation's leading consultant on community …

Population Aging And Healthcare Costs In China And Japan, Sean Brown

Honors Theses

This study focuses on the natural demographic phenomenon known as population aging and its intersection with healthcare expenditures. Healthcare spending can be a major burden on a country’s economy, so it is important to accurately assess the connection between these two factors. Population aging occurs when countries reach a point in their demographic transitions characterized by declining total fertility rates and high life expectancy. This natural but undesirable position has implications for virtually all aspects of society, and all countries are trending towards aging. This study examines the cases of China and Japan in an effort to assess the validity …

Political, Racial, And Household Income Barriers For Access To Healthcare In Illinois Counties, Kennedy Bray '23

Student Publications & Research

Access to health care impacts many people throughout the United States, as it restricts their ability to solve their health concerns. People who have the highest risk of a lack of access include people who are uninsured, people a part of a specific social class, or people belonging to a specific political party. In a particular geographical region, these factors could lead to groups of people suffering because of circumstances that they cannot control in their region. In my project, I determine how better access to healthcare and the percentage of people insured are affected by a measurement of the …

Behavioral Economic Modeling Of The Effects Of Symptom, Severity, And Cost On Seeking Medical Care, Mark J. Rzeszutek

Dissertations

While the United States has some of the highest healthcare spending in the world, it has some of the worst health outcomes. For example, maternal mortality in the United States is almost five times as high as in other similarly wealthy countries. It also has the highest rates of avoidable deaths. One of the reasons for this may be the cost of accessing healthcare due to privatized insurance. For example, Americans may avoid important preventive medical visits and other health screeners due to cost. While lack of health insurance has been correlated with decreased health utilization, a precise understanding of …

Social Determinants Of Health: The Impact On Health Outcomes And Hospital Profitability, Danielle Mcpherson

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Hospitals are experiencing decreasing profitability due to increasing healthcare cost. In this paper, I demonstrate that there is financial value to hospitals by addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) as this strategy improves health outcomes and yields cost savings. I estimate the impact of SDOH on the health outcomes using an IV probit regression analysis and estimated the impact of health outcomes on cost using a basic linear regression. I estimate that improving SDOH by one standard deviation will result in hospital cost savings as follows: addressing Violent Crime will decrease hospital cost between 0.16% and 0.21%, addressing Supplemental Nutrition …

Effect Of The Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion On Labor Participation Of Female Registered Nurses In Outpatient Care, Deborah R. Weissner

Theses and Dissertations

Medicaid expansions were used to examine the effects of a surge in demand for primary care on the labor participation of registered nurses (RN) in outpatient settings relative to hospitals. Using difference-in-differences and two-way fixed effects with the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample single-year 2010 through 2017 files, I find an increase in the probability of an RN working in an outpatient setting among (1) young, unmarried RNs with a maximum household income of 501 percent of the federal poverty level and (2) young unmarried RNs who have at least one child under age 6. These results are …

Comparative Spending Of Medicaid Dollars On Child Participants Of Kentucky’S Sobriety Treatment And Recovery Teams Program Versus A Matched Comparison Group., Matthew Thomas Walton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Child protective services agencies have long observed the complicating role that parental substance use and addiction plays in cases of child maltreatment. Families who struggle with these problems present unique challenges for child welfare professionals. These families are typically more difficult to engage, more likely to have children removed from the home, and have poorer outcomes when compared to other families. These poorer outcomes often include health problems. Addiction has well-known effects on health, and the specific manifestations of these problems for parents have been documented for years in child protection casework. However, what has been less investigated are the …

Unveil The Mysterious Reality Of Management Healthcare In China: A Case Study On Institutional Arrangement, Yasha Zhang

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis identifies and analyzes current problems in the healthcare market in China. Although many health indicators of China such as life expectancy and child mortality rates have improved significantly and suggest that the healthcare reform in China is successful, there have been many more reports of patient's violent attack towards the doctor, the sudden death of doctors, and decreasing doctor supplies that suggest otherwise. I observed that the relationship between doctors and patients are intense, doctors experience enormous working pressure, and many doctors are leaving the market. It makes me wonder how did government fail to improve its healthcare …

The Design Of An Instrument To Assess Clinical Laboratories Efficacy Post Implementation Of The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act, Harry Mcdonald Jr.

Dissertations

The healthcare system in the United States has undergone substantial changes in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). On March 23, 2010, the implementation of the new healthcare law brought universal healthcare access to all Americans, while attempting to increase quality and decrease medical costs. The new law promotes more of a quality-focused, outcome-based model rather than a pay-for-fee service model; thus, moving the paradigm from infrequent to preemptive healthcare. The PPACA postulates as the only way to achieve cost savings while increasing quality and access. Never before has there been such an extensive change to …

How "Costly" Is Healthcare For The Elderly?, Ruchika Majumdar

Scripps Senior Theses

This study focuses on the possible ways to improve healthcare services around the world, which increase the life expectancy for aging people. Utilizing a cost-effective analysis, the relationship between various healthcare expenditures and conditional life expectancy for people aged 60 and above was examined. A linear regression model was used to analyze data from 122 WHO (World Health Organization) countries obtained from the year 2000. The model included additional health-adjusted life years (HALE) at age 60 as the dependent variable and healthcare cost indicators as the independent variables. Regression results revealed that cost of healthcare was overall significant in contributing …

The Influence Of Projection Bias On Outcomes Of Healthcare Financial Incentive Programs, Jordyn M. Bader

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis contributes to the behavioral health literature and literature regarding healthcare financial incentive programs by discussing the influences of the behavioral economic concept of projection bias on programs designed to recruit healthcare providers to rural or under served areas. First, I propose an adaptation to the model of projection bias by introducing a term that captures variability in individuals’ propensity to exhibit projection bias based on the amount of effort expended in predicting future preferences. Next, I conduct a probit model regression to observe what incentive program design features and participant characteristics are likely to influence the probability of …

The Effects Of Social Status On The Quality And Affordability Of Healthcare, Robert O. Burns

Honors College Theses

Access to healthcare is very important in today's society, as is the quality of said healthcare. The socioeconomic status (SES) of an individual is the most important factor when it comes to determining both the accessibility and quality of said care, and as such has been studied extensively. Across different countries, lower SES has been linked to the decreased affordability and success rates of medical treatments such as coronary heart disease medication or health risk prevention regimes. In many cases, low SES patients were found to be less likely to seek treatment than higher SES patients as the debt they …

Geographic Variation Of Health Care Spending On Heart Failure In Metropolitan Areas, Kevin Mcmillan

Department of Geography: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The costs of healthcare have long been a concern in the United States. It is well known that these costs vary geographically, but attempts to explain this variation have been met with limited and varied success. This is partly attributable to the fact that data available have restricted analyses to assessing the issue to using Medicare cost per beneficiary. In June, 2013, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new Medicare data that detailed the charges and payments made to hospitals throughout the United States in 2011. In this thesis, this new dataset was used to examine costs …

Health Insurance Exchanges: A Panacea Or A Band-Aid?, Luisa Sanchez De Tagle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2010, the 111th Congress passed the first national health care reform in the United States, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). This landmark legislation is intended to "fix" a health care system renowned for decreasing access and escalating costs. This paper examines one of the principal reforms in the ACA, the state health insurance exchanges. The author finds theoretical and empirical evidence to support the exchanges' potential (in conjunction with other relevant ACA reforms) to increase access, decrease insurers' excess profits and shift health care costs away from those least able to afford them. The exchanges fall …

Specialty Service Lines In The United States Hospital System: Old Wine, New Bottles, Michael Sajovetz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of specialty service lines in the United States health care system presents many significant questions regarding the access to, provision of, and financing of healthcare. In general terms, specialty service lines represent the newest development in several important trends in the American hospital system and reflect important trends in the wider economy. Many claims have been made regarding the effect of physician-owned specialty hospitals, from their exemption from self-referral prohibitions, their diversion of services away from general hospitals that use high profit margins to subsidize the "safety net," and concerns regarding the over-provision of technologically complex treatments in …

Does The Provision Of Healthcare Vary With Race? Evidence From Health Shocks To Patients Far From Home, Ajay Sridhar

CMC Senior Theses

A vast literature acknowledges that minority groups, particularly African-Americans, receive less, and lower-quality treatment than Caucasians in U.S. health facilities. It remains an open question as to how much of this disparity is a result of poverty, and how much, a result of more overt discrimination. Former empirical studies are far from conclusive given the endogeneity of hospital quality, as minorities are overrepresented in areas served by poor health facilities. To remedy this endogeneity issue, we observe visitors to the state of Florida, as well as travelers within Florida. When an individual experiences a health shock far from home, her …