Medical Inflation and Cost Containment

Concern continues to be expressed about the rapid rise of health care costs in the United States, its present impact, implications for the future, and alternative policies aimed at moderating the increase. For example, a 1990 survey of 821 chief executive officers of businesses in Wisconsin revealed that 67 percent perceived health costs as "substantially out of control" with 96 percent responding that these costs are either substantially or somewhat out of control. A subset of these figures for Central Wisconsin CEOs illustrate a similar response. (William M. Mercer Meidinger Hansen, Inc., 1990).