02551cam a2200421 i 4500 rnd000000000047143 RAND 920212s1981 cau b 000 0 eng d 81001376 0833003038 RAND/R-2691-HHS (Sirsi) a188120 Online only CstmoR CstmoR n-us--- RA410.53 .N49 1981 Newhouse, Joseph P. author. The demand for medical care services : a retrospect and prospect / Joseph P. Newhouse. Santa Monica, CA : RAND, 1981. vii, 31 pages ; 23 cm text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia unmediated n rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier volume nc rdacarrier "March 1981." "This report was written as a survey paper for the World Congress on Health Economics, held at Leiden, the Netherlands, September 9-11, 1980"--Preface. Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-31). Surveys the literature on demand for medical care services and conjectures where the literature may go next. Although focus is on the response of demand to changes in cost sharing arrangements, several other determinants of demand are treated. Previous studies have used four sources of data: premium or claims information, natural experiments, comparison of demand of individuals with different insurance policies, and designed experiments. The advantages and drawbacks of using each of these sources are examined. Several frontiers of demand analysis are also discussed: specification of price, income, and health status variables; specification of the stochastic term and use of appropriate estimators; specification of the dependent variable; and the norms argument. The author concludes that whereas both conceptual and empirical knowledge are now much improved, the theory of both price and utilization at the market level is in need of further study. Also available on the internet via WWW in PDF format. Description based on print version record. Medical care Evaluation. Medical care Utilization United States. Health Services Research. Rand Corporation. United States. Department of Health and Human Services. World Congress on Health Economics. Online Access http://www.rand.org/publications/R/R2691/ 597570 597570