An iconoclastic view of health cost containment.

Provider payments and patient charges as policy tools for cost-containment: How successful are they in high-income countries?

In this paper, we focus on those policy instruments with monetary incentives that are used to contain public health expenditure in high-income countries. First, a schematic view of the main cost-containment methods and the variables in the health system they intend to influence is presented. Two types of instruments to control the level and growth of public health expenditure are considered: (i...

Reins or fences: a physician's view of cost containment.

Containing U.S. health care costs: What bullet to bite?

In this article, the authors provide an overview of the problem of health care cost containment. Both the growth of health care spending and its underlying causes are discussed. Further, the authors define cost containment, provide a framework for describing cost-containment strategies, and describe the major cost-containment strategies. Finally, the role of research in choosing such a strategy...

Health care cost containment in the Federal Republic of Germany

Since 1977, cost containment has been an integral part of health policy in the Federal Republic of Germany. The common goal of the cost-containment acts was to bring the growth of health care expenditures in line with growth of wages and salaries of sickness fund members. The Health Care Reform Act of 1989 is the most recent manifestation of this policy. The main features of the numerous cost-c...

Must we choose between quality and cost containment?

Accepted for publication 10 September 1996 Introduction For the past few years, the United States has been engaged in a public policy debate about how to reform the healthcare system to assure access to care while cost containment. Underlying the deliberations is a concern that quality and cost containment are a trade off that is, that efforts to contain costs inevitably result in lower quality...