I just returned from a brief trip to the United Kingdom, where among other activities I gave a talk at the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. I am increasingly convinced that we need to incorporate more behavioral economics into public policy (for example, see here). The Prime Minister's Strategy Unit has been doing impressive work on the topic.
CBO Blog
The rising cost of health care represents the nations single most important long-term fiscal challenge. CBO issued a new brief today on whether increased transparency about prices for specific health care services and pharmaceuticals would help to temper the rapid growth in costs.
Today CBO issued a cost estimate foranamended version of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008. Thesubstitute amendment for S. 3036 (formerly S. 2191) would set an annual limit or cap on the volume of certain greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted from electricity-generating facilities and from other activities involving industrial production and transportation.
CBO issued a paper on health information technology last week; the blog entry on that paper is here. Unfortunately, when we released the paper, we erroneously left Laura Adams of the Rhode Island Quality Institute off the list of reviewers who were acknowledged in the paper. Laura provided extremely valuable comments, and we are very appreciative of the time and effort she put into helping us improve the quality of the paper.
CBO released an issue brief today on different approaches for splitting the projected growth in the costs of the major federal health care programs into "excess cost growth" and demographic effects (these two factors reflect, respectively, rising costs per beneficiary and the number and age of beneficiaries). For more information about CBO's projections of long-term health care costs, see here.
The key points of the issue brief are:
I am delivering a talk on behavioral economics and health care later today at the National Academy of Social Insurance. Today's event is being held in honor of Peter Diamond's winning the Robert Ball award from NASI. Peter is not only brilliant but also a wonderful friend and colleague, and I am thrilled that he has won this award. Peter has been interested in behavioral economics, which combines insights from psychology with those from economics, for almost 40 years.
CBO is often asked for our most recent estimates of before- and after-tax household income, along with our estimates of effective tax rates. We have therefore just created a special page on our website containing our most recent household tax and income data, to make it easier for people to find those numbers.
Many people believe that health information technology (health IT) has the potential to transform the practice of health care by reducing costs and improving quality. CBO just released a significant study, prepared at the request of the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, examining the evidence on the costs and benefits of health information technology.
I am testifying this morning on climate change before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions would provide benefits to society by helping to limit the damage associated with climate change, especially the risk of significant damage. The testimony focuses on ways to reduce the economic cost of achieving any given greenhouse gas emissions target. In particular:
Under current law, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to rise substantially as a share of the economy.