Are Medical Prices Declining? Evidence from Heart Attack Treatments
通过构建服务价格指数和生活成本指数，测量1983-1994年间心脏病治疗的价格变化，发现考虑折扣和质量调整后，实际生活成本指数每年下降约1%。
We address long-standing problems in measuring medical inflation by estimating two types of price indices. The first, a Service Price Index, prices specific medical services, as does the current CPI. The second, a Cost of Living Index, measures a quality-adjusted cost of treating a health problem. We apply these indices to heart attack treatment between 1983 and 1994. More frequent reweighting and accounting for price discounts lowers the measured price change for heart attacks by three percentage points annually. Accounting for quality change lowers it further; we estimate that the real Cost of Living Index fell about 1 percent annually.