An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Technological Progress and Japan's Medical Care Cost Containment Policy
Ryu NIKI

The purpose of this paper is to substantiate to what extent the generally accepted idea that the progress of medical care technology necessarily increases the cost of medical care is valid by the statistical analysis of medical care expenditures in Japan. How the progress of medical technology raised the level of such expenditures from 1970 to 1992 is examined in four areas:
(1) changes in the ratio of national medical care expenditures to the national income, (2) changes in the ratio of "medical technology" (drugs and injections, diagnostic imaging and laboratory examinations, medical procedures and surgery, etc.) costs to the total cost of medical care. (3) the cost of replacing traditional technologies with new ones in laboratory examinations, and (4) the estimated ratio of the cost of advanced technologies covered by medical insurance to the total cost of medical care. It is concluded that, at least since the 1 980s, Japan's level of medical care expenditures has not risen as a result of the progress in medical technology.

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