健康是个人福利的重要因素之一,因此,全世界有相当大的一部分资源用于卫生保健。英国和多数欧洲国家的卫生保健支出约占国民生产总值的6％,美国差不多占10％。但是,尽管投入的资源数量如此之大,经济学家们只是在不久前才开始关心这一领域,经济学家们没有把它作为适用传统经济分析的问题来考察。甚至现在许多非经济学家中仍有一种强烈的情绪,认为卫生保健是社会问题而非经济问 Health is one of the important factors of personal welfare. Therefore, a large part of the world’s resources are used for health care. Health care expenditures in the United Kingdom and most European countries account for about 6% of GNP, and the United States accounts for almost 10%. However, despite the large amount of resources invested, economists have only recently begun to care about this area, and economists have not considered it as a matter of applying traditional economic analysis. Even among many non-economists, there is still a strong feeling that health care is a social issue rather than an economic issue.