Health Economist - Washington, United States - Legislative Branch

Description

Summary

CBOâs Health Analysis Division seeks a health economist who is interested in federal programsâwith special consideration given to expertise in prevention and public health or in behavioral health, including experience conducting analyses and modeling in those areas.

The economist will work closely with other members of CBOâs staff and will interact with a large network of academic and industry specialists to prepare studies, testimony, and other information for the Congress.

Duties

Recent analytical work completed by the division has covered such topics as health insurance coverage for the nonelderly, Medicaids exclusion of payments for residents of institutions for mental diseases, the effects of changes in manufacturers future revenues on prescription drug development, the budgetary and coverage effects of lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare, the costs of illustrative single-payer systems, the uninsured population, projections of federal health care spending, and how a public option offered in nongroup health insurance markets might be designed.

Ongoing work includes studies on a broad range of topics, including preventive health services, mental health, the development of new medical technologies, and factors affecting the prices and availability of medical services and the demand for those services.

The health economist in this role will produce research reports about issues affecting the federal government and will help to develop new studies and to design and improve the analytical models used in CBOs analyses and its estimates of the costs of proposed legislation.

One topic of particular interest to the agency is the impact of prevention and public health policies on health and budgetary outcomes in the long term.

Another topic of interest is policies related to behavioral health, including those affecting the mental health care workforce and access to mental health care, and the budgetary outcomes of those policies.

The economist will also collaborate with analysts in CBOs Budget Analysis Division to develop cost estimates for legislation and baseline estimates of the costs of government programs.

Furthermore, CBOs economists have opportunities to publish the agencys research and their own research in CBO working papers and through submissions to academic journals.