Health care costs represent a nearly 18% of U.S. gross domestic product
and 20% of government spending. While there is detailed information on
where these health care dollars are spent, there is much less evidence
on how this spending affects health.
The research in Measuring and Modeling Health Care Costs seeks to
connect our knowledge of expenditures with what we are able to measure
of results, probing questions of methodology, changes in the
pharmaceutical industry, and the shifting landscape of physician
practice. The research in this volume investigates, for example,
obesity's effect on health care spending, the effect of generic
pharmaceutical releases on the market, and the disparity between
disease-based and population-based spending measures. This vast and
varied volume applies a range of economic tools to the analysis of
health care and health outcomes.
Practical and descriptive, this new volume in the Studies in Income and
Wealth series is full of insights relevant to health policy students and
specialists alike.