Measuring the prices of medical treatments
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Measuring the prices of medical treatments
Brookings Institution Press, c1999
- : cloth
- : paper
Available at 31 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
How serious is medical care inflation in the United States? For many years, price indexes for medical care have outstripped the overall rate of inflation. For example, between 1986 and 1996, the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 6.5 percent per year, roughly exceeding the annual increase in the overall CPI during this period by 75 percent.
Many economists, however, believe that economic statistics on medical care do not accurately measure medical care price changes because it is especially difficult to construct accurate price indexes for medical markets. Some very recent research, reported in this volume, suggests that -contrary to the usual presumption of runaway medical inflation -prices for at least some medical care interventions are not rising rapidly and may even be falling.
Understanding medical care inflation is important for policy issues such as medical care cost containment. Medical care price indexes also affect other economic statistics on medical care, including national accounts and the national health accounts. Understanding economic trends in the medical care sector is vitally dependent on accurate medical care price measures.
This volume, the result of a conference cosponsored by the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute, brings together state-of-the-art methodological and empirical work on the measurement of medical outcomes and prices. It will be a useful tool for anyone concerned about medical inflation, medical outcomes, the quality of medical treatments, and public policy toward medical cost containment.
by "Nielsen BookData"