Rising health–care costs inevitable

Rising Legal Costs

A continuing, oft-expressed concern about the legal system, in the English-speaking world at least, is the rising cost of legal services, whether civil or criminal. Given the labour-intensive nature of legal services, this is not surprising to an economist, as we discuss below. In order to be effective, policy must be informed before reforms are considered, lest reforming zeal be dissipated ine...

Rising health care costs.

Is a Paradigm Shift in US Healthcare Reimbursement Inevitable?

American medicine remains, at least arguably, the best in the world. The United States leads the world in laboratory and clinical research, producing far more new scientific discoveries than any other country. Americans continue to lead the world in Nobel Prizes in medicine. People come from all over the world for education and to train in leading American centers of excellence. Despite the exc...

Rising drug costs: the impact on dermatology.

In the US prescription drug costs are rising faster than any other component of health care expenditures, and show no signs of slowing. Spending on prescription drugs has been estimated by the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) to be rising by approximately 12% per year, more than twice the rate for national health care expenditures (5.1%). Factors driving the rise in prescription drug c...

Rising costs of medical imaging spur debate.

M edicare spending on medical imaging services reached $14 billion in 2006, more than double the 2000 spending, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released in June. The GAO also found that the proportion of spending on imaging services performed in physician offices rose from 58% to 64%, whereas the proportion of spending on imaging performed in hospitals drop...