via RAND Corporation
Christine Eibner, a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, led a team that analyzed parts of the proposed health care plans of the two major parties’ presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The team modeled those proposals for which they were able to obtain sufficient detail. In this Q&A, Eibner talks about what they found and how RAND’s COMPARE microsimulation model—a computer program that uses economic theory and data to simulate the effects of health policy changes—was used to carry out the analysis.
The researchers estimated the likely effects of each policy relative to the Affordable Care Act in 2018 (if it were unchanged) on the number of people with health insurance, consumer out-of-pocket spending and the federal deficit. Funded by the Commonwealth Fund, the analysis can be found in its entirety on the Commonwealth Fund website.
