Are Medical Care Prices Still Declining? A Re‐Examination Based on Cost‐Effectiveness Studies
中文摘要
二十多年前，一项关于心肌梗死治疗的知名研究提供了证据，表明在对质量进行适当调整后，医疗服务价格实际上正在下降（Cutler、McClellan、Newhouse和Remler，1998）。本文利用8000多项涵盖广泛疾病和治疗方法的成本效果研究所提供的估计，重新考察这一问题。我们发现，治疗创新伴随着经质量调整的价格大幅下降。为了将这些经质量调整的指数纳入总体通胀衡量指标，我们将未经调整的医疗服务价格指数、治疗创新对应的经质量调整价格指数以及新技术扩散速度的代理变量结合起来。官方统计数据显示，2000年至2017年，医疗服务价格相对于整体经济通胀每年上涨0.53%；与此相反，我们发现，同期经质量调整的医疗服务价格每年下降1.33%。
Abstract
More than two decades ago, a well‐known study on heart attack treatments provided evidence suggesting that, when appropriately adjusted for quality, medical care prices were actually declining (Cutler, McClellan, Newhouse, and Remler (1998)). Our paper revisits this subject by leveraging estimates from more than 8000 cost‐effectiveness studies across a broad range of conditions and treatments. We find large quality‐adjusted price declines associated with treatment innovations. To incorporate these quality‐adjusted indexes into an aggregate measure of inflation, we combine an unadjusted medical‐care price index, quality‐adjusted price indexes from treatment innovations, and proxies for the diffusion rate of new technologies. In contrast to official statistics that suggest medical care prices increased by 0.53 percent per year relative to economy‐wide inflation from 2000 to 2017, we find that quality‐adjusted medical care prices declined by 1.33 percent per year over the same period.