Most medical cost-effectiveness analyses include future costs only for related illnesses but this approach is controversial. This paper demonstrates that cost-effectiveness analysis is consistent with lifetime utility maximization only if it includes all future medical and non-medical...

Competition and prospective payment systems have been widely used to attempt to control health care costs. Though much of the increase in medical costs over the past half-century has been concentrated among a few high-cost users of health care,prospective payment systems may provide incentives...