Health Care Policy Issues: An Economic Perspective

Citation

Allen, L. (2009), "Health Care Policy Issues: An Economic Perspective", International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 174-175. https://doi.org/10.1108/17506120910971740

This book covers in one volume the scope and depth of issues facing the medical care system in the USA. The book is organized into 36 different chapters and each chapter zeroes in on an important issue. The chapter headings get right to the point. Chapter 29 is entitled: “Should kidneys and other organs be bought and sold.” Each chapter ends with references and the sources of important statistics are cited. Those using the book as a textbook will find the discussion questions at the end of each chapter useful. At the end, the book a glossary defines key terms and an index makes a wide range of topics more accessible.

The array of topics is impressive, including shortages of nurses and physicians, malpractice, national health insurance, financial future of medicare, pricing of new pharmaceuticals, admission to medical school, and the role of the internet. A major unifying thread in the discussions is the role economic and market forces play in shaping the modern heath care system and determining the options available for improving the system. In the course of the analysis, the book discusses matters such as non‐price competition among hospitals, price sensitivity of health care consumers, rationing, supply and demand of doctors, role of price controls, market conditions governing health insurance, and the medical market as a competitive market.

Students who have had freshman/sophomore level microeconomic principles should have no difficulty with the book's economic analysis of health care issues. The economic analysis is integrated into the text of health care discussions, and makes minimal use of graphs and formulas to illustrate theoretical points. College level mathematics is not necessary to decipher the theoretical graphs and formulas.

The book does make a wide and thorough use of descriptive bar graph, line charts, and pie charts for the presentation of statistics. Models of organization and life cycles are also illustrated schematically. The book contains 71 figures of these types. In addition to the figures, the book contains 26 tables, which mainly present statistics, although some information is included in the form of tabular grids. The book is relatively heavy on statistics, but does not rely upon statistical concepts and analysis. A course in statistics is not required.

The author is a market economist who idealizes the competitive market as the standard of efficiency by which all markets should be judged. He regards most government intervention as forcing medical markets away from an approximation of a competitive market. He does believe governments should help make sure consumers have complete and accurate information before making health care choices. In addition, governments should enforce antitrust laws and subsidize medical care for those unable to afford it. The author describes in detail the monopoly pricing tactics of brand name pharmaceutical companies introducing and marketing patented drugs, but seems less offended by this departure from the competitive model. He emphasizes that rising prices at least partially reflect rising quality of drugs.

This latest volume is the fourth edition of this book. In the new edition, the statistics have been updated to 2005. New chapters have been added covering the future of hospitals, the record of market completion in health care, and public policy dilemma's. The book illuminates every issue that it touches. It makes a nice addition to the library of anyone concerned with health care issues in the USA. It merits recommendation as a textbook for a one‐semester survey of the issues facing the current health care system.