5055.0: Wednesday, November 19, 2003: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM | |||
Oral | |||
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| Current and projected levels of medical spending figure prominently in policy discussions and decisions on the tenability of both existing and proposed coverage programs, public as well as private. This session aims to deepen analysis of the appropriateness of the current allocation of health-related resources in the U.S. The issue bears on the availability of adequate resources for both public health and the delivery of effective medical care to all. Questions the session will explore include (1) Are we overpaying for medical goods and services received? (2) Are many of us receiving medical goods or services of little or no benefit? (3) Are we wasting resources that could pay for care needed by those now uninsured and under-insured? (4) Are there more efficient, yet no less effective, ways to deliver medical care? (5) Would we as a population be healthier if we spent less on medical care and more on socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health? | |||
| Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to: (1) Characterize overall medical cost as the aggregate of each instance of a delivered medical service multiplied by the price of that service, (2) Identify examples of excess prices and quantities of medical services that have contributed to the recent increase of medical inflation, (3) Distinguish between provider-driven and consumer-driven service utilization, (4) Describe available mechanisms for constraining prices and volumes of delivered services in ways consistent with the practice of evidence-based medicine, (5) Discuss the relevance of cost containment to expansion of health care access, (6) Communicate the population health perspective on medical spending, and (7) Discuss the relative impact of social spending and medical spending on health. | |||
| See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information. | |||
| Sidney J. Socolar, PhD | |||
| Sidney J. Socolar, PhD | |||
| Introductory Remarks | |||
| High prices for low utilization: What's wrong with this picture? Ellen R Shaffer, PhD | |||
| Excessive prices and quantities of health care: A contributing factor to medical inflation Thomas Bodenheimer, MD, MPH | |||
| Inefficiency of patent supported drug research: Can a free market do better? Dean Baker, PhD | |||
| Is the US spending too much on medical care? Lessons from the frozen North Clyde Hertzman, MD, MSc | |||
| Discussion | |||
| Concluding Remarks | |||
| Organized by: | Medical Care | ||
| Endorsed by: | Gerontological Health; Labor Caucus; Socialist Caucus | ||
| CE Credits: | CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing, Pharmacy | ||