Seit 1975 verfolgt die Gesundheitspolitik primär das Ziel der Kostendämpfung und wendet hierzu in starkem Maße zentralistische, dirigistische und bürokratische Maßnahmen an. Auch die derzeitigen Gesetzentwürfe enthalten wiederum zahlreiche Schritte in diese Richtung. Aus ökonomischer...

This article presents new evidence on income-related health inequality and its development over time in Switzerland. We employ the methods lined out in Van Doorslaer and Jones (2003, "Inequalities in self-reported health: validation of a new approach to measurement", Journal of Health Economics <EM...</em>

Assessment of the benefits is one of the major and largely unresolved problems in the economic evaluation of new drugs, particularly so when major benefits concern patient's well-being, joy of life or life quality rather than increased longevity or improved earnings capacity. In this study, a...

The impact of smoking on medical care expenditure is analyzed, challenging the widespread belief that smoking imposes a large cost burden on health services systems. The results imply that lifetime expenditure is higher for nonsmokers than for smokers because smokers' higher annual utilization...