Are medical prices declining? Evidence from heart attack treatments

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cutler, DM; McClellan, M; Newhouse, JP; Remler, D
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University; Tulane University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/003355398555801
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 991-1024
• 关键词: acute myocardial-infarction; cost-effectiveness; outcomes; GENERICS; indexes; GOODS; care

摘要

We address long-standing problems in measuring medical inflation by estimating two types of price indices. The first, a Service Price Index, prices specific medical services, as does the current CPI. The second, a Cost of Living Index, measures a quality-adjusted cost of treating a health problem. We apply these indices to heart attack treatment between 1983 and 1994. More frequent reweighting and accounting for price discounts lowers the measured price change for heart attacks by three percentage points annually. Accounting for quality change lowers it further; we estimate that the real Cost of Living Index fell about 1 percent annually.