Health Economics

KEY PEOPLE

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

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Download the Health Policy Forum brochure.

Health care is a major domestic policy issue. National health care expenditures now exceed $2.1 trillion, consuming 16 percent of gross domestic product after a decade of relative stability. This growth in expenditures is likely to accelerate as the population ages and as scientific progress introduces more effective, but more expensive, procedures.

The Health Economics Program’s mission is to study the ways in which economic incentives and government policies influence the quality and costs of health care. The program’s guiding philosophy is that society can deliver high-quality medical care while controlling expenditures. Health care providers, patients and others must be offered incentives to balance costs against benefits to ensure that resources are not wasted. No other health policy research center focuses on the effects of incentives embodied in institutional arrangements.

Vivian Ho, the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics, is heading a project funded by the National Cancer Institute to determine whether competition among hospitals versus centralization of complex cancer surgeries at large expert facilities improves patient welfare. She is studying the effects of competition versus regulation on patient mortality rates, hospital costs and the prices that patients and insurers face for cancer surgery.

The program aims to communicate its research results to health industry practitioners and policymakers through a biennial healthcare conference, which will emphasize dialogue between physicians, healthcare executives, policymakers and researchers. Findings are being disseminated through public policy journals, clinical and social science journals, and international academic conferences. Another aim is to increase the available supply of researchers in the health policy field through the training of Baker Institute interns, undergraduate and graduate students at Rice University, and clinicians interested in health policy at the Texas Medical Center.

PUBLICATIONS
2009: Health Economics Newsletter - December 2009
Dec 16 2009

Vivian Ho; Health Economics Newsletter - September 2009
Sep 14 2009

Vivian Ho; Throwing More Dollars at a Broken Health Care System
Jul 20 2009

Vivian Ho; Health Economics Newsletter – June 2009
Jun 29 2009

Vivian Ho; Insuring All Children Now Will Save Money in the Future
Jun 18 2009

Vivian Ho; Baker Institute Policy Report 40: The Economic Impact of Uninsured Children on America
Jun 08 2009

Vivian Ho, Marah Short; Health Economics Newsletter - March 2009
Mar 31 2009

Vivian Ho
2008: The U.S. Health Cost Crisis: Recommendations for the Next Administration
Dec 19 2008

Vivian Ho; Health Economics Newsletter - December 2008
Nov 20 2008

Vivian Ho; Health Economics Newsletter - September 2008
Sep 23 2008

Vivian Ho; Certificate of Need Regulations and the Availability and Use of Cancer Resections
Jul 01 2008

Marah Short, Vivian Ho, Thomas A. Aloia; Cardiac CON Regulations and the Availability and Use of Revascularization Services
Apr 11 2008

Vivian Ho, Joseph S. Ross, Brahmajee K. Nallamothu, Harlan M. Krumholz; Health Economics Newsletter - March 2008
Feb 29 2008
2007: Health Economics Newsletter - December 2007
Dec 01 2007

Vivian Ho; Estimating Cost Savings from Regionalizing Cardiac Procedures Using Hospital Discharge Data
Sep 01 2007

Vivian Ho, Laura A. Peterson, MD, MPH

EVENTS

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Health Economics