Over the past five decades in the United States both total medical expenditures and the proportion of medical expenditures financed with public funds have increased significantly. A substantial increase in the prevalence of obesity has contributed to this growth. In this study we measure the external cost of obesity, in the form of publicly funded health-care expenditures, and how this cost cha...

This study reports on 20 years of private social welfare spending, from 1972 through 199 1. The private sector is playing an increasingly important role in financing the Nation's aggregate social welfare programs; this section assumes a large share of health and medical care expenditures, as well as income-maintenance benefits, the latter in areas of employment-related pensions, group life insu...

This paper presents projections of national health expenditures by type of expenditure and sources of funds for 1980, 1985, and 1990. A major purpose of these projections is to provide a baseline for health care expenditures in the absence of national health insurance and cost containment. Rapid growth in health expenditures is projected to continue to 1990. National health expenditures increas...

BACKGROUND Examination of expenditures in areas where more universal application of effective injury prevention approaches is indicated could identify specific mechanisms and age groups where effective intervention may impact public injury-related expenditures. METHODS The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project 2003 (KID-HCUP) contains acute care hospitalization data for U.S. children and ad...

This paper empirically evaluates whether government ideology and electoral motives influenced the growth of public health expenditures in 18 OECD countries over the 1971-2004 period. The results suggest that incumbents behaved opportunistically and increased the growth of public health expenditures in election years. Government ideology did not have an influence. These findings indicate (1) the...

BACKGROUND Medical spending on psychiatric hospitalization has been reported to impose a tremendous socio-economic burden on many developed countries with public health insurance programmes. However, there has been no in-depth study of the factors affecting psychiatric inpatient medical expenditures and differentiated these factors across different types of public health insurance programmes. I...

The purpose of this paper is to examine and evaluate the effects of government intervention on the Iranian economy over the last few decades. It is shown that public expenditures affect the value added of each economic sector not only simultaneously, but lagged over several periods. Regression results show that the value added from the agricultural sector has never been affected by government e...

A voluntary public health expenditures reporting system existed in the United States for over 25 years, tracking and reporting trends in health department expenditures, revenue streams, functions, and programs. Today, no such system exists and no data are available to help us understand how and where public health dollars are being spent and the trends during good and bad economic times. This a...

BACKGROUND Determinants of public healthcare expenditures in type 2 diabetics are not well investigated in developing nations and, therefore, it is not clear if higher physical activity decreases healthcare costs. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between physical activity and the expenditures in public healthcare on type 2 diabetes mellitus treatment. METHODS Cross-se...