Guest Contributor:
Zack Cooper
Zack Cooper
Health Economist, London School of Economics
Columnist Zack Cooper is a health economist working at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Zack’s work focuses on the impact of competition in hospital and insurance markets, incentive structure and payment system design. More broadly, he is interested in using market forces to create effective incentives within the public sector. Zack’s most recent work has examined the impact of patient choice and provider competition in the English National Health Service. He is currently looking at the impact of hospital and insurance market structure on provider reimbursement rates in the US and launching a project on comparative hospital performance.
In addition to his academic work, Zack has worked as an advisor and speechwriter to several policy-makers and politicians. Zack’s editorials have appeared in a number of leading newspapers, and he is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Zack appears frequently in the popular press, including on the BBC, Sky News, ABC, CBS, and National Public Radio. His research has been cited in the Financial Times, the Times, the Independent, the Washington Post, the Evening Standard, the Economist, the Health Service Journal and the Guardian.
Zack completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and did his masters and Ph.D. at the London School of Economics.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The U.S. hospital sector is one of the largest industries in the United States. It’s a $700 billion dollar industry, and there is twice as much money spent on hospital care than is spent on the purchase of new cars.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Nearly every developed country is under substantial pressure to slow the growth in health care spending. However, as we have seen, while virtually every country has pledged to spend less, few have been successful.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
The U.S. debt ceiling debate was a master class in political dysfunction. However, in the midst of the political infighting and false debates about the merits of raising revenue versus slashing spending, one firm fiscal fact remained: unless the U.S. can slow the rate of growth in health care spending, we’re going to keep having these paralyzing debt debates time and time again.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Do you want more evidence that health care reform can be a hugely difficult process? If so, then take a look at the political and policy tumult over the British government’s health care reforms to the English National Health Service.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Ask any policy wonk to rattle off the most powerful ways to improve performance in the U.S. health care system and you’ll likely hear them mention payment reform. You’ll hear them talk about how the U.S. health care system has historically paid for quantity, not quality and these policy wonks will argue that successful health care reform must include introducing so-called pay-for-performance programs that link payments to outcomes.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
These days, the most hotly contested element of the health care reform law is the mandate that requires every American to purchase insurance coverage come 2014. The mandate is a lightning rod for criticism and many have expressed hope that the Supreme Court will deem it unconstitutional
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
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Over the last six months, a new government in the U.K. has proposed a series of sweeping reforms for the English NHS, many of which I support, including expanding patient choice, increasing quality transparency, and increasing competition. However, the type of competition the new government wants to introduce—simultaneous price and quality competition—has me worried.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Ultimately, the central lesson emerging from Europe at the moment is that within hospital and insurance markets, it often takes more regulation and a more active state in order to create meaningful competition and productive incentives.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
A recent joint project between the London School of Economics and McKinsey & Company had a powerful central finding: good hospital management leads to good patient outcomes.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
In 2011, health insurance premiums in the United States are going to rise. In all likelihood, the price increase that consumers are going to see isn’t going to be trivial.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
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Terminal illness is one of the most difficult issues in medicine and health policy. Terminal illness forces us to address end of life care, death, quality of life, and the limits of modern medicine. Terminal illness is also hugely expensive.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Unlike in the U.S., where it’s exceedingly difficult to pass health care legislation, sweeping health care reforms are commonplace in Britain. Because of their parliamentary, winner-takes-all political system, when each new government arrives in power, they almost always introduce broad changes to the National Health Service.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
In the four years since a significant package of health care reforms was enacted in the Netherlands, the Dutch have emerged with a health system that’s innovative, dynamic, and widely viewed by many health policy experts as a blueprint for a high functioning 21st century health care system.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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In Britain, because the NHS is funded by taxation, everyone in the country is required to pay for the cost of medical care. However, the amount each person in Britain pays into the NHS is not proportional to what they take out in the form of services, medications, and care.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Right now in both countries, there’s a push among most politicians to exhort the necessity of reining in our respective national deficits. Politicians in the U.S. and U.K. have hit the stump and said to anyone who will listen that unless deficits are reduced, the consequences for the economy will be dramatic.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
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On March 23, President Obama signed the Affordable Health Care for America Act. This legislation will go down as one of the most significant pieces of social policy legislation that Congress has ever passed. Sure, the legislation isn’t perfect—no law ever is—but it expands coverage to 32 million Americans
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Health care reform is testing the United State’s capacity to address big issues and has highlighted glaring flaws in the legislative process. What’s clear by now is that it’s tough to boil health care policy down into concise talking points and it’s nearly impossible to sell sensible reforms politically.
Monday, February 1, 2010
In the U.S., private-sector insurers hold a powerful monopoly in insurance markets, and this hinders progress. Conversely, in the U.K., it has historically been the government-run hospitals’ monopoly power that was hampering improvements.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
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Sen. Max Baucus’s America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 has received a tepid reception from Democrats and Republicans alike. That’s precisely because Sen. Baucus’s bill embodies compromise, mutual conciliation, and moderation. While pragmatism and expediency are laudable goals, they are apt to produce uninspiring results, and that’s what we’ve gotten in the Healthy Future Act.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Some believe that too much competition has been the catalyst for rising health care costs and inefficiency in the American health care market. I disagree. I believe that the U.S. insurance market actually suffers from too little competition.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
If any major health care legislation is passed in the United States in 2009, it will almost certainly involve some form of an insurance exchange. This post focuses on why policymakers are eager to create an exchange and the detrimental impact of risk selection on true competition in an insurance exchange.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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Broad reform of the U.S. health care system could save $3 trillion by 2020, expand coverage to 99 percent of Americans, and save 100,000 lives annually...If that is the prize on offer, why is health care reform so difficult and what is standing in the way of President Obama and Congress succeeding?
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