1st Edition

The Economics of U.S. Health Care Policy: The Role of Market Forces The Role of Market Forces

By Frank W. Musgrave Copyright 2006
    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    Designed as a primary text for courses in health care economics and policy analysis, this comprehensive work places the issues and economic analysis of the health care industry in the context of market forces driving the industry, including negotiated markets, managed care, and the growing influence of oligopolies. Written in accessible prose, without the aid of technical jargon and mathematical formulations, the content is rich with applicable, understandable economic concepts and analysis, and examples of market failure and government involvement. Some of the major policy issues covered are drug pricing, Medicare and Medicaid reform, the medically uninsured, for-profit hospital monopoly price power, managed care competitive pricing, and new negotiated markets. The relevant economic concepts employed in the text include price elasticity of demand/supply, market structure from competitive to oligopolistic markets, monopoly pricing power, measures of health care inflation and the biases of the CPI, demand and supply factors, inverse relationship of present health care expenditures as a percentage of GDP, measures/concepts of efficiency, and the role of government in a market era.

    List of Tables and Figures; Foreword; Preface; 1. Introduction Health Care Choices, Trade-Offs, and Ownership of Health Care Resources; 2. The Mix of Health Services: More Market and More Government?; 3. The Pricing of Drugs: Who Benefits and Who Pays?; 4. Managed Care: Revolution, Evolution, or Devolution?; 5. The Four "C's" of the Uninsured: Causes, Characteristics, Consequences, and Corrections/Choices; 6. Medical and Health Savings Accounts: Schemes That You Can Love!; 7. The Medicare Reform School: Who Pays for the Rehabilitation?; 8. Conclusions and Policy Implications; Bibliography; Index.

    Biography

    Frank W. Musgrave