Research Library

In this issue brief, Rice University's Baker Institute and The Episcopal Health Foundation ask, "Were Texans satisfied with the cost of health care and health insurance prior to the Affordable Care Act?" By Vivian Ho, Ph.D.; Elena M. Marks, J.D., M.P.H.; and Patricia Gail Bray, Ph.D.

Although Aboriginal people make up a small percentage of the world's population, they are disproportionately affected by poverty and neglected tropical diseases.

Baker Institute health policy experts Hagop M. Kantarjian and Vivian Ho explain why Texas, which holds the notorious record of the highest rate of uninsured citizens in the U.S., should follow many Republican-led states that are now reconsidering the Medicaid expansion program under Obamacare.

Many contemporary medical ethicists dismiss the centuries-old Hippocratic Oath as outdated because of the enormous scientific, social, economic, and political changes since Hippocrates' time. Health policy scholar Hagop Kantarjian makes a case for its relevance.

Errors in surgical care for cancer patients may seem infrequent, but the costs associated with them are extremely high.

The technical problems plaguing the health exchange roll-out came without warning, and health policy scholar Elena Marks, an advocate of health care reform, is not happy about it. Read her Oct. 25, 2013, blog.

Data on revenues by payer type are used to identify the determinants of rising hospital prices in Texas between 2000 and 2007. By Vivian Ho, Jerome Dugan and Meei-Hsiang Ku-Goto.

For both generic and patented cancer drugs, the free-market economy has not worked well. Solutions are needed to maintain reasonable drug prices that allow for corporate profits and are affordable to patients and to the U.S. health care system.

In a genuine effort to protect patients from adverse events, regulatory burdens and research rigidity in clinical trials have increased to a point at which such protection is outweighing the benefits, and actually harming patients who are unable to be involved in clinical trials.