IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v40y2002i3p881-906.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equality, Efficiency, and Market Fundamentals: The Dynamics of International Medical-Care Reform

Author

Listed:
  • David M. Cutler

Abstract

Public opinion surveys uniformly show low support for medical-care systems in developed countries. The longstanding conflict between equal access to care and efficient service provision partly explains this dissatisfaction. But the trade-off is particularly acute in medical care, as new technologies developed over time have increased the cost of care and made the equity commitment even more expensive. Countries first dealt with rising costs by maintaining equal access and restricting total spending. Efficiency suffered, however. As a result, many countries are considering a move away from spending controls and toward incentive-based medical-care reform.

Suggested Citation

  • David M. Cutler, 2002. "Equality, Efficiency, and Market Fundamentals: The Dynamics of International Medical-Care Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 881-906, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:40:y:2002:i:3:p:881-906
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/002205102760273814
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/002205102760273814
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Cutler, 1994. "A Guide to Health Care Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 13-29, Summer.
    2. James R. Baumgardner, 1991. "The Interaction between Forms of Insurance Contract and Types of Technical Change in Medical Care," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 22(1), pages 36-53, Spring.
    3. Joseph P. Newhouse, 1992. "Medical Care Costs: How Much Welfare Loss?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 3-21, Summer.
    4. Zweifel, Peter & Manning, Willard G., 2000. "Moral hazard and consumer incentives in health care," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 409-459, Elsevier.
    5. David M. Cutler & Sarah J. Reber, 1998. "Paying for Health Insurance: The Trade-Off between Competition and Adverse Selection," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 113(2), pages 433-466.
    6. Danzon, Patricia M. & Chao, Li-Wei, 2000. "Cross-national price differences for pharmaceuticals: how large, and why?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 159-195, March.
    7. David M. Cutler & Mark McClellan & Joseph P. Newhouse, 2000. "How Does Managed Care Do It?," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(3), pages 526-548, Autumn.
    8. McClellan, Mark & Cutler, David & Newhous, Joseph P., 2000. "How Does Managed Care Do It?," Scholarly Articles 2643884, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Weisbrod, Burton A, 1991. "The Health Care Quadrilemma: An Essay on Technological Change, Insurance, Quality of Care, and Cost Containment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 523-552, June.
    10. Carol Propper & Neil Söderlund, 1998. "Competition in the NHS internal market: an overview of its effects on hospital prices and costs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(3), pages 187-197, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roger D. Congleton & Alberto Batinti & Rinaldo Pietratonio, 2017. "The Electoral Politics and the Evolution of Complex Healthcare Systems," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(4), pages 483-510, November.
    2. Craig, Stuart V. & Ericson, Keith Marzilli & Starc, Amanda, 2021. "How important is price variation between health insurers?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Cutler, David & Lincoln, Bryan & Zeckhauser, Richard, 2010. "Selection stories: Understanding movement across health plans," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 821-838, December.
    4. Benjamin R. Handel & Jonathan T. Kolstad, 2021. "The Affordable Care Act After a Decade: Industrial Organization of the Insurance Exchanges," NBER Working Papers 29178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ching‐To Albert Ma & Thomas G. Mcguire, 2002. "Network Incentives in Managed Health Care," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 1-35, March.
    6. Kristopher J. Hult & Tomas J. Philipson, 2012. "Public Liabilities and Health Care Policy," NBER Working Papers 18571, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Marton, James & Yelowitz, Aaron & Talbert, Jeffery C., 2014. "A tale of two cities? The heterogeneous impact of medicaid managed care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 47-68.
    8. Frank, Richard G. & Glazer, Jacob & McGuire, Thomas G., 2000. "Measuring adverse selection in managed health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 829-854, November.
    9. Martin Gaynor & Kate Ho & Robert J. Town, 2015. "The Industrial Organization of Health-Care Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(2), pages 235-284, June.
    10. Farasat A.S. Bokhari, 2001. "Managed Care and the Adoption of Hospital Technology: The Case of Cardiac Catheterization," HEW 0110001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. David Bardey & Jean‐Charles Rochet, 2010. "Competition Among Health Plans: A Two‐Sided Market Approach," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 435-451, June.
    12. Chernew, Michael & Gowrisankaran, Gautam & Scanlon, Dennis P., 2008. "Learning and the value of information: Evidence from health plan report cards," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 156-174, May.
    13. Pedro Pita Barros & Xavier Martínez-Giralt, 2009. "Technological adoption in health care," Working Papers 413, Barcelona School of Economics.
    14. Lucarelli, Claudio & Nicholson, Sean & Tilipman, Nicholas, 2022. "Price Indices and the Value of Innovation with Heterogenous Patients," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Katherine Ho, 2006. "The welfare effects of restricted hospital choice in the US medical care market," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(7), pages 1039-1079, November.
    16. Frankovic, Ivan & Kuhn, Michael, 2023. "Health insurance, endogenous medical progress, health expenditure growth, and welfare," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    17. Gaynor, Martin & Town, Robert J., 2011. "Competition in Health Care Markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: Mark V. Pauly & Thomas G. Mcguire & Pedro P. Barros (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 499-637, Elsevier.
    18. Boone, Jan, 2019. "Health provider networks with private contracts: Is there under-treatment in narrow networks?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    19. David Bardey & Giancarlo Buitrago, 2015. "Integración vertical en el sector de la salud colombiano," Documentos CEDE 14069, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    20. Okunade, Albert A. & Murthy, Vasudeva N. R., 2002. "Technology as a 'major driver' of health care costs: a cointegration analysis of the Newhouse conjecture," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 147-159, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:40:y:2002:i:3:p:881-906. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.