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Chapter

Chapter
Health 1
DOI link for Health 1
Health 1 book
Health 1
DOI link for Health 1
Health 1 book
ABSTRACT
Chapter nine explores one of the three major areas of contemporary public spending, health. Long-term increases in real costs vex public (and private) health spending. The chapter considers the degree to which new technology and ageing populations drive up costs. While these factors are relevant, they are not as important in cost terms as the long-term bureaucratization and managerial transformation of health care has been or the over-consumption of services. Other key factors include institutional price inflation (the unintended result of government subsidization of health care), the lack of transparent pricing of health procedures, the administrative pricing of health goods, the failure to adequately substitute machines for labor (i.e. automate), and the lack of autotelic behavior in large health care organizations.