Center for Studying Health System Change

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Jon R. Gabel

 
 

Paul B. Ginsburg

 
     
 
 

Trends in the Cost of Employer-Sponsored Coverage

Fall 1998
Data Bulletin No. 14
 
 

Health Spending:

January/February 1999
Health Affairs
 
 

Tracking Health Care Costs:

November 1999
Issue Brief No. 23
 
 

A Primer on Understanding Health Care Cost Trends:

December 1996
Issue Brief No. 05
 
 

Tracking Health Care Costs:

July/August 1997
Health Affairs
 
 

Tracking Health Care Costs

Fall 1996
Health Affairs
 
 

Tracking Health Care Costs:

January 1997
Issue Brief No. 06
 
 

Health System Change:

Winter 1995
Health Affairs
 
 

Despite Fears, Costs Rise Only Modestly in 1998

Fall 1998
Data Bulletin No. 13
 
     

Tracking Health Care Costs:

What’s New in 1998?

September/October 1998
Health Affairs, vol.17, no.5 (September/October 1998): 141-146
Paul B. Ginsburg, Jon R. Gabel

espite proclamations in the media, health care costs are not rising as much as predicted. The authors reviewed cost trends for private insurance premiums (an increase of only 3.3 percent in 1998), provider revenues (a striking contrast between high rates of increase for drugs and low rates for hospital and physician spending) and payrolls in health services establishments (a sharp decline in the early 1990s with only modest increases since then), and found only a small upswing in the rate of cost increases. Consumers are receiving substantial benefits from the low cost increases: slow growth in employee contributions to insurance premiums, and 9 percent lower out-of-pocket spending in 1995 than in 1990. These consumer spending trends may be attributable to rapid shifts from conventional coverage to managed care.

Free access to this article is available at the Health Affairs Web site.

 

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The Center for Studying Health System Change Ceased operation on Dec. 31, 2013.