Professor of Economics to Deliver Health Policy Seminar on February 2

Robert Kaestner, PhD, a professor in the Department of Economics at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois, will deliver a health policy seminar at UCSF on February 2.

Robert Kaestner, PhD

Members of the UCSF community are invited to the seminar, which is sponorsed by the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and UCSF-UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science and Health Policy. The seminar, titled "Does Health Insurance and Seeing the Doctor Keep You Out of the Hospital?," will be held on Thursday, Feb. 2, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in room 263 at UCSF Laurel Heights, 3333 California St.

Kaestner is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Eocnomic Research. His areas of expertise are health, labor and social policy. He has more than 100 scholarly publications and has been awarded several research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

On Thursday, Kaestner will talk about the estimates of associations between health insurance and hospitalization and between the use of doctor visits and hospitalization. In his analysis, he used data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and proprietary data from a private insurer.

Results from the NHIS indicate that health insurance is positively associated with hospitalization; insurance is associated with a 33 percent to 72 percent increase in hospitalization. His analysis of private insurer data indicate that a $500 increase in outpatient spending was associated with a 32 percent increase in the probability of having any inpatient spending.

To RSVP for this seminar, email Ernestine Florence or call her at 415/476-4924.