The Economics of Health Reconsidered

This book reconsiders the field of health economics as it is traditionally taught and practiced. It critically examines economic theory as applied to the health sector and questions the prevailing belief that a competitive healthcare marketplace results in the best outcomes.

New information, including an overview of standard microeconomic theory, makes this new edition an ideal stand-alone text for health economics and health policy courses.

Expanded and thoroughly updated, this edition features: A new chapter on traditional microeconomic theory that includes an overview of demand, supply, competition, monopoly, and social welfare, an expanded overview of the role of government, added information about market competition and the implications for health policy, expanded information about the demand for health insurance and health services, a new chapter discussing for-profit versus nonprofit organizations in healthcare, including specialty hospitals and the nursing home and pharmaceutical industries, a new chapter on healthcare-workforce issues including the markets for physicians and nurses, an update on the different ways developed countries can and have organized their healthcare systems

Thomas Rice, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health. He has published widely on isses such as competition and regulation in health services, physicians' economic behavior, cost containment, health insurance, and the Medicare program. Lynn Unruh, PhD, RN, is an associate professor in the Department of Health Management and Informatics at the University of Central Florida. She has published extensively in areas such as nurse staffing and quality in hospitals and nursing homes, the nursing workforce, the work environment in hospitals and nursing homes, and the organizational responses of hospitals and nursing homes to reimbursement and regulatory and market forces.