Homework

Homework 1:

(due September 5)
Read: Dieleman, Joseph L., Ellen Squires, Anthony L. Bui, Madeline Campbell, Abigail Chapin, Hannah Hamavid, Cody Horst et al. “Factors associated with increases in US health care spending, 1996-2013.” Jama 318, no. 17 (2017): 1668-1678.
Answer the following questions:
In order of degree of association, what are the five factors associated with increases in US health care spending? Define each factor in your own words. How important is each factor?

Visit: vizhub.healthdata.org/fgh/
Pick one country not including US and China. Compare and contrast that countries Oop, Government, Prepaid private, and DAH financing of health expenditure to US and China.

Homework 2:

(due September 12)
Define:
Cost Sharing, Safety net hospital (be as specific as possible), Primary Care, Outpatient Care, Inpatient Care, Hospice, EHR, Gatekeeping
Read:Tables and US Chapter of Mossialos, Elias, Martin Wenzl, Robin Osborn, and Dana Sarnak. 2015 international profiles of health care systems. The Commonwealth Fund, 2016. (http://wwww.issuelab.org/resources/25100/25100.pdf) p6-9, 171-179
Answer the following questions:
From the reading, which countries use private insurance mandates (Table 1)?
In which countries do public hospitals make up less than 50% of the hospitals/beds (Table 4)?

Homework 3 (h.t. Bill Evans):

(bring to class September 17, not to be turned in) Solutions
Review problems from slides, can you solve them for each of three possible utility functions, 1: U(X)=√ X ; 2: U(X)=ln(X); and 3: U(X)=X?
Solve:

  1. A lottery costing $1 is created based on a random drawing of a number between 1 and 10,000,000. If the player guesses the number, they win $5,000,000. Suppose a person is risk neutral, i.e., their utility is linear in income (U(X)=X). Will this person ever play the lottery? Why would anyone ever play such a game?
  2. Suppose that a utility function is U(X)=√ X  where Y is measured in thousands of
    dollars. Fred’s current job pays $2,500 per month with certainty. Fred can chose to work for himself and have a 50% chance of earning $3,600 per month and a 50% chance of earning only $1,600. Should Fred take the new job? Does your answer change if Fred’s utility function is U(X)=ln(X)?
  3. Suppose that everyone has the same utility function and an annual income but people face different risks to health. Person A has a 10% chance of experiencing a health shock that requires $100 in
    expenses while Person B has a 0.1% chance of experiencing a health shock that requires $10,000. Calculate the expected loss of the two individuals. Graphically illustrate that Person B would be willing to pay a greater risk premium for insurance that Person A although the expected loss is the same for both types of people. Explain your answer.
  4. Fred has a job where he earns Y per year but there is a probability P Bob will be injured on his job. If injured, Fred will not be able to work and his income will fall to zero. Write an equation for Fred’s expected utility in the absence of any type of insurance.
    a)What is the certainty equivalent?
    Under workers’ compensation, if a worker is injured on the job and unable to work, the workers’ comp program will pay the worker a fraction θ of their income (Y) in the injured state. A premium, I, is taken from Fred’s paycheck to fund this, so his income if he isn’t injured is Y-I.
    b) What is his new expected income? Assume that if Fred is injured, he does not pay any premium.
    c)If Fred is risk neutral, U(Y)=Y. In this case, what is his new expected utility?
    d)If Fred is risk averse, will his expected utility under this uncertainty be higher or lower?
    e) Solve for I assuming the insurance company makes an expected profit of 0
    f) What relationship do you expect between P, I and θ in the previous problem?

Homework 4

(Due September 26)
Suppose Jack’s income is $75K, and there is a 10% chance of having a getting hurt and being unable to work. If he is unable to work, his company will still pay him $25k. What is his expected income? What is his expected loss? If his utility function is U=ln(x), what is his expected utility? What is his certainty equivalent? What is his risk premium? Explain in your own words the meaning of his certainty equivalent and risk premium.

Can you do the problem if his utility function is U==√ X ?

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Homework 5

(Due October 10)
Read: Wilbur J.. Cohen, and Milton Friedman. Social Security: Universal or Selective?. American enterprise institute for public research, 1972.
on youtube or in print
and
DeWitt, Larry. “Research Note #25: Ponzi Schemes vs. Social Security.” Historians Office, Social Security Administration.

Answer based on readings:
Why are Wilbur Cohen and Milton Friedman useful sources for discussing social security (in 2-4 sentences each)?
What are 3 pros of Social Security according to Cohen and 3 pros according to Friedman?
What are Friedman’s main criticisms of Social Security (in 1 or 2 paragraphs)?
How does Cohen respond (in 1 paragraph)?
Answer:
What does the government do with OASDI payroll tax revenue?
What do you think the government should do with the revenue?
Is social security bad? Is it a ponzi scheme (1 or 2 paragraphs)?

Homework 6

(Due November 7)
Read: Obama, Barack. “United States health care reform: progress to date and next steps.” Jama 316, no. 5 (2016): 525-532.

Answer (ht Jeffrey Parker):
a) Who is the author? Do they have an interest in a particular outcome?
b) What is the point of the paper? Is there a question the paper is trying to answer?
c) What is the paper’s methodology? Is the paper theoretical, empirical, a meta-analysis, a case study, or something else?
d) What is the data of the paper? What set of information is the paper using to draw its conclusions? How generalizable is this information?
e) What is the paper’s conclusion? Are any robustness checks or sensitivity analyses used?
f) What effect might this paper have on other papers, the field, or society? What additional questions might future researchers ask to build upon this paper?

Homework 7

(Due November 26)
Read: Pozen, Alexis, and David M. Cutler. “Medical spending differences in the United States and Canada: the role of prices, procedures, and administrative expenses.” INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing 47, no. 2 (2010): 124-134.

Answer:
a) What is the point of the paper? Is there a question the paper is trying to answer?
b) What is the paper’s methodology? Is the paper theoretical, empirical, a meta-analysis, a case study, or something else?
c) What is the data of the paper? What set of information is the paper using to draw its conclusions? How generalizable is this information?
d) What is the paper’s conclusion? Are any robustness checks or sensitivity analyses used?
e) What effect might this paper have on other papers, the field, or society? What additional questions might future researchers ask to build upon this paper?

Homework 8

(Due December 5)
Read: Seidman, Laurence. “The Affordable Care Act versus Medicare for All.” Journal of health politics, policy and law 40, no. 4 (2015): 911-921.
and
Pollack, Harold. “Medicare for All—If It Were Politically Possible—Would Necessarily Replicate the Defects of Our Current System.” Journal of health politics, policy and law 40, no. 4 (2015): 923-931.

Answer:
Write 800-1200 words discussing the most convincing points of each author. If you had to convince a family member over break about one side or the other on the issue, what would you say?