1 Introduction

摘要

Healthcare expenditures constitute an ever increasing percentage of gross domestic products (GDPs) of the 34 OECD~1 countries about which such data are publicly available (OECD 2015). Ten countries spent between 10-11.8% of their respective GDPs on healthcare in 2012. The United States (US) was an outlier at 16.9%, or nearly 2.8 trillion dollars (The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation 2014). Furthermore, inpatient care, the focus of this monograph, comprises nearly 30% of healthcare expenditures (OECD 2013).