A health economy, like a
macro economy, involves the production and consumption of goods and services
and the distribution of those goods to consumers. A health economy differs from
a macro economy because it distinctly considers production, consumption.
Another difference concerns the way in which economists take the pulse of the macro
economy and health economy. While economists are really concerned with
efficiency and equity, the unemployment, inflation, and gross domestic product
growth rates are also considered when gauging the performance of a macro
economy. If you recall from ECON 100, gross domestic product (GDP) captures the
total market value of all goods and services produced in an economy during a
particular period.
For a health economy, the
analogous performance indicators are the components that make up the so-called
three-legged stool of medical care: costs, access, and quality. Again, although
health economists are more concerned about efficiency and equity, many often
use some variation of the three-legged medical stool to gauge the performance
of a health economy. We discuss and provide some historic and contemporary data
for each of these components in the following sections. The discussion not only
introduces the various legs of the medical stool, but also motivates and acts
as a roadmap for the remaining material in this article
Medical Care Costs
Although the topic of medical
care costs is taken up more formally, recall from our earlier discussion that
medical care resources, like resources in general, are scarce at a given point
in time. It follows that an opportunity cost, or a price, is associated with
each and every medical care resource because of scarcity. Thus, we can think of
medical care costs as representing the total opportunity costs when using
various societal resources such as labor and capital to produce medical care
rather than other goods and services. Each year since 1960, actuaries at the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have collected and reported
data on the uses, sources, and costs of medical care in the United States. The
data can be compared across various industries in the health care sector, like
hospital, physician, and nursing home services, examined in a particular year,
or tracked over time. Funding sources including consumers, insurers, or
government can also be examined for various types of medical care, and over time.
Hence, the CMS data yield important insights with respect to how health care
funds are used, where the funds come from, and how much money in total is spent
on medical care in the United States.
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