Abstract
Healthcare costs are hotly and widely debated, with conflicting perspectives each claiming individually to explain the rising cost of health care. Yet, the global cost problem in healthcare might not be as simple or clearly understood as some hold it out to be. The following chapter presents and elaborates on five theoretical perspectives for understanding the issues underlying rising healthcare costs. Each of these suggests a different path for costs and cost reduction. On one hand, two of the perspectives suggest the inevitability of healthcare cost increases, either because costs are largely for personnel or because patient demographics reflect adverse global population trends. On the other hand, three of the perspectives imply that healthcare costs might be inflated because of regulatory and industry forces unique to health care. Thus, the chapter challenges overly-simplistic explanations of the cost problem, attempting to frame a more rigorous and thoughtful debate among payers, providers and policy makers.
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Reinhardt, R., Oliver, W.J. (2015). The Cost Problem in Health Care. In: Gurtner, S., Soyez, K. (eds) Challenges and Opportunities in Health Care Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12178-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12178-9_1
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