What is better: public or private provision of health care?

This is a question that can be answered empirically but doing so is challenging. While cross-country comparisons are feasible for comparing public and private health care provisions, often there are many other differences between health care systems across country. Within any given country, there is significant selection bias in terms of who receives public vs.…

Introduction to the Military Health Service

Active service military need health care. How do they get it? For the 9.5 million active military beneficiaries and their families, the Military Health Service (MHS) provides the health care they need. Some of the medical care is provided at military facilities and some care is purchased through non-military (i.e., civilian) providers. A paper by…

VBID in TRICARE

Value-based insurance design looks to be expanding. As the American Journal of Managed Care reports: The bill calls for a pilot demonstrating the feasibility of incorporating VBID by “reducing co-payments or cost shares for targeted populations of covered beneficiaries in the receipt of high-value medications and services and the use of high-value providers” no later…