PUBLIC POLICY FOR AN AGING SOCIETY

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This research examines two public policy issues related to the aging of society: the measurement of well-being among the aged; and the effects of alternative health care reimbursement systems on medical treatments and outcomes. The first project compares and contrasts income based measures of well-being with measures based on consumption and direct access to resources. The project will utilize data on consumption and resource access over the past 30 years, for both the elderly and non-elderly populations. The comparisons over time and across age groups will be used to identify the population in need of government support, and to forecast resource needs as the population ages. The second project considers the consequences of alternative reimbursement policies for the delivery of medical services. There are three components to this work; the effect of prospective payment on treatments and adverse medical outcomes; the responsiveness of hospital technology acquisition to prospective reimbursement; and the implications of state uncompensated care pools for the provision of care to the uninsured. The project considers whether the supply of hospital care responds to changes in reimbursement systems, and whether these supply responses in turn affect the underlying health of hospital patients. The project uses national and state data on admissions to hospitals, data on the ownership of technology by different types of hospitals, and data on price changes resulting from prospective payment and state uncompensated care pools.