Indiana Consortium For Mental Health
Services Research
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

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Abstract

Reprint # 56: The Controversy Of Increased Spending For Antidepressants

Most of the past decade has been characterized by moderating growth in health care spending, enough so that health insurance premiums paid by employers declined between 1997 and 1998.¹ Analysts have traced this moderation in spending growth to the rise of various forms of managed care, a mechanism that mitigates incentives for overuse of health care services through capitation payment, utilization controls, and contracts for discounted services.²  In the early 1990s many believed that the "managed care effect" would also apply to pharmaceuticals. Spending on pharmaceuticals has grown faster than that for other health spending components, however, with annual growth of about 24 percent between 1996 and 1999 for persons with generous pharmacy benefits.³ This rise in drug spending has drawn special attention from payers, purchasers, and policymakers.⁴