BackgroundPublicly funded healthcare forms an intricate part of government spending in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, because of its reliance on entitlements and dedicated revenue streams. The impact of budgetary rules and procedures on publicly funded health care might thus be different from other spending categories. In this study we focus on the potential of fiscal rules to contain these costs and their design features.MethodsWe assess the relationship between fiscal rules and the level of public health care expenditure of 32 (OECD) countries between 1985 and 2014. Our dataset consists of health care expenditure data of the OECD and data on fiscal rules of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for that same period. Through a multivariate regression analysis, we estimate the association between fiscal rules and its subcategories and inflation adjusted public health care expenditure. We control for population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), debt and whether countries received an IMF bailout for the specific period. In all our regressions we include country and year fixed effects.ResultsThe presence of a fiscal rule on average is associated with a 3 % reduction of public health care expenditure. Supranational balanced budget rules are associated with some 8 % lower expenditure. Health service provision-oriented countries with more passive purchasing structures seem less capable of containing costs through fiscal rules. Fiscal rules demonstrate lagged effectiveness; the potential for expenditure reduction increases after one and two years of fiscal rule implementation. Finally, we find evidence that fiscal frameworks that incorporate multi-year expenditure ceilings show additional potential for cost control.ConclusionsOur study shows that there seems a clear relationship between the potential of fiscal rules and budgeting health expenses. Using fiscal rules to contain the level of health care expenditure can thus be a necessary precondition for successful strategies for cost control.

Governments use fiscal rules to put a framework and limits on how budgetary challenges are addressed, but the rules themselves are still an understudied area among health policy scholars. For a long time, healthcare held a somewhat separate status because of the reliance on entitlements and dedicated revenue streams. However, the combined forces of advocates for integral decision-making, central budget control and the increasing costs might shift healthcare towards budgetary frameworks that currently apply to other spending categories. In this paper, we study fiscal rules that the US and the Netherlands have adopted since 2010 and their impact on healthcare policy. Our analysis shows that fiscal rules can have an impact on the rationing of healthcare. In the studied timeframe, the rules seem to have more impact on budget outcomes than on the budget process itself. In addition, the convergence of fiscal and program policy objectives seems to be better accomplished in a budgetary system that applies enforceable budget ceilings. Budgeting for health entitlements requires a comprehensive and tailor-made approach and the composition of traditional rules might not fully answer to the complexities of healthcare policy. This paper aims to contribute to that debate and the way we think about healthcare budgeting. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We analyze the assessments of recent health reforms by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in the United States and the Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) in the Netherlands. Both reforms aim to capitalize on productivity gains, which is appealing for policymakers because of the potential for cost savings while maintaining - or enhancing - quality and access. These measures however generally translate into more health care, rather than care that is affordable and appropriate. Scoring agencies therefore have rightfully been reluctant to assign significant savings to these measures. Thus with regard to cost savings, both agencies instead have favored more traditional policy measures in the past. They are however increasingly mapping out loose ends and dilemmas for payers, including information asymmetries, reputation issues and provider business models that contradict the goals of policymakers. This calls for further exploring this avenue and the development of more integrated agendas that might commit actors and the spread of best practices.