Posted by Michael Wonder on 24 Nov 2016
All-payer claims databases — uses and expanded prospects after Gobeille
23 November 2016 - Health care spending is approaching 20% of the U.S. gross domestic product, yet spending on research to improve the functioning of the health care system has been limited.
What is worse, we generally lack a unified source of data to study all persons and the services they receive. Medicare data are national in scope but are limited primarily to people over age 65 and are not representative of behaviours or spending for the commercially insured.
Furthermore, since Medicare’s prices are set administratively, its data cannot be used to study issues such as market power and competition. Data from commercial health insurers are limited because each plan represents only a portion of the market and enrollees frequently change plans.
