...Theodore R. Marmor; Donald A. Wittman; Thomas C. Heagy This paper discusses the politics of anti-inflationary policy in the medical care sector. We first clarify the issue by distinguishing between four different conceptions commonly used when discussing medical inflation. We then present some...

... directly to support physician shortage and minority recruitment programs. This article argues that unrestricted subsidies are inequitable, wasteful, unnecessary, and inflationary; therefore they should be abandoned, in favor of programs that contribute directly to the supply of primary care physicians...

..., i.e., unemployment persists during each renewed inflationary surge and inflation persists even as the unemployment rate rises. Faced with this dilemma of "stagflation," economists have been hard pressed to devise appropriate corrective strategies. The traditional cure...

... of these savings, and (2) the amounts saved have been microscopic in the face of inexorable inflationary pres- sures in the entire health system. Obviously, the market is flawed; but solutions to market failure reside in careful analysis of incentives, not in continued reliance on flawed and inflexible...

... moves to a true prepayment mode for HMOs, it will lose an important regulatory control over providers, i.e., the ability to adjust payment to them based on post facto cost experiences. HMO advocates claim that this procedure is in- herently inflationary, since it provides no incentive...

... use of fee-for-service payment is inflationary and inimical to the coordinated delivery of care. But although fee-for-service payment certainly creates inflationary incen- tives, it can be coupled with measures—such as coordinated bargaining over fee schedules and volume-based fee adjustments...

... gained a permanent interest in controlling hospital costs. Reclaimable as they were, the monetary and administrative concessions extracted during the imple- mentation phase of Medicare offered no protection from the potential exercise of federal control Once the inflationary impact of Medicare...

... arrangements won by unions weakened support for a universal approach to health provision, while fragmented financing arrangements generated an inflationary dynamic. Among those covered by collective bargaining agreements, consumption increased. This helped to drive up prices, further limiting access for those...

... (Bongiorno and Garland 1983). Both techniques are inherently inflationary, but any valuation of current assets needs to reflect price level changes. West Virginia performs appraisals annually. Other fair-rental states have devised different approaches. For example, Maryland includes on-site ap...

... adequate payment levels, par- ticularly given the prepayment discount. Postwar inflation increased the costs to hospitals and they in turn demanded from Blue Cross inflationary adjustments to reimbursement levels. In fact, the entire health insurance industry was united in the claim...

... in the health care sector continues to outstrip the rest of the economy and, because of the increasing reliance on public expenditures, health care costs increasingly are consuming resources required to serve other essential health needs. This inflationary spiral in health care costs...

... the inflationary pressures already at work in American medicine. We emphasized that the increased number of women physicians had the potential to change the professional culture of medicine in the direction of more primary care and more compas- sionate care. And, we highlighted the variable impact...

... in the market for medical care; why governmental attempts to deal with the medical care market often have perverse or inflationary effects; and why the interaction of all these factors tends to undermine the means and the incentives for an efficient, cost-effective market for medical care. 56...

... that there is nothing unique about the existence of these effects in a referral context to justify their absolute prohibition, given that the same effects are endemic to fee-for-service reimburse- ment itself (Hall forthcoming). My point is that inflationary and provider-selection incentives are so...

... and labor do have the muscle and the incentive, if not the expertise, to dampen the irrational and inflationary competition between providers that has impeded rational health planning and effective regionalization of services. Without their participation, there are no restraints on the normal...

... been criticized as inflationary from the moment of its adop- tion by government programs. Academic journals and legislative records abound with proposals for alternative approaches, and public and private payers have experimented with their use. These efforts have had little, if any, impact...

... statistical indicators resumed their inflationary spiral as soon as the program ended, make it clear that ESP had little lasting effect in changing the structure of the hospital economy. It is especially interesting to note that the rate of increase in total hospital assets increased from...

..., it will protect persons with private insurance by eliminating the worry that circumstances beyond their control will subject them to large medical bills when they get care out of network. Experts can debate whether arbitration decisions will be inflationary and lead to an uptick in premiums. But, even if premium...

... insufficient-the poor are more sick more often, and the incentives for HMO systems are to seek a healthy clientele. The much-celebrated finan- cial incentives of this system are in fact incentives to provide less; and, refreshing as that sounds in our inflationary condition, it will not always...

..., the rising costs of health care led to a revolt from both public and private payers that challenged the inflationary conventions that physicians had established. With the advent of prospective payment in Medicare and spread of managed care in employer-sponsored insurance and Medicaid, doctors faced growing...