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- Title
Economists in Health Care: Saviors, or Elephants in a Porcelain Shop?
- Authors
Reinhardt, Uwe E.
- Abstract
The book "The Economics of Health," by Herbert Klarma, has been commissioned by the Ford Foundation whose program director had remarked that health economics is perhaps the most neglected field in economics. In intervening years, the Foundation's wish has been amply fulfilled, perhaps beyond its wildest expectations. Today, hundreds of American economists make health care their prime focus, and their research has gained a powerful influence over the formation of American health policy. The American health sector has provided care to the nation's uninsured indigents through a web of hidden cross subsidies whereby the nation's penny-pinching "have's" were made to be their poor brothers' and sisters' keepers. Major contributions have thereby been made, enhancing the quality of the information on which public policy is based. But there are also some pitfalls in health economics, and these should be acknowledged. The ostensible objective of the article is to identify and understand such pitfalls, and predict human behavior in as objective a manner as is possible, to correct these errors.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MEDICAL economics; ECONOMICS of Health, The (Book); ECONOMISTS; HEALTH policy; KLARMA, Herbert; MEDICAL care; SUPPLY-side economics; FORD Foundation; POLITICAL planning
- Publication
American Economic Review, 1989, Vol 79, Issue 2, p337
- ISSN
0002-8282
- Publication type
Article