Democratic Society-Undemocratic Medicine: Limited Resources in Medical Care

Burton A. Weisbrod

IPR working papers from Institute for Policy Resarch at Northwestern University

Abstract: Soaring costs have thrust health care into the political debate of every economically advanced country. The escalation of expenditures is being accompanied by increasing pressures on governments to confront what appears to be a dilemma -- either accepting the rising expenditures on health care, or restricting access to health care.This paper addresses the question of what has brought most of the world to this tragic choice and financial brink. It argues that: (1) The most important force driving health care expenditures upward has beentechnological change, and (2) the particular pattern of technological change that has occurred was not inevitable, but was caused inadvertently by public policies operating through the health insurance system. Looking to the future, I consider whether the course of technological change in health care will be different from what it has been in the past, and whether it will reduce upward pressure on expenditures; I forecast that it will not. The paper also deals with a second question: No matter what generated the present predicament, is there a way out? Two avenues are examined -- changing the direction of technological change, and using health care resources more efficiently, recognizing that policies that appear to be cost decreasing may well do the opposite.

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:nwuipr:95-26

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