Is More Money Good? The Limited Linkages of Federal Contract and Grant Spending with Health Characteristics in US Counties

Abstract

Federal contract and grant spending is a necessary component of overall healthcare spending. However, previous research on the effects of health contract spending on tangible outcomes has been limited. We use a truncated lagged panel OLS regression framework to analyze the relationship between health contract spending and underlying causes of death. We found a limited relationship between health contract spending and health outcomes and failed to reject the null hypothesis that health contract spending has no effect on health outcomes. Our findings indicate that alternative policy initiatives and spending distributions to address health problems may be worth investigating, though more research needs to be done on the tangible effects of health contracts versus other types of contracts before a definite conclusion can be made.