The Health Care Marketplace

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction to the Economics of Health Care

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 1-11

3. Physician Services Industry

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 12-26

4. Hospital Industry

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 27-42

5. Insurance, Managed Care, and System Integration

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 43-62

6. Employer and Employee as Purchasers of Health Care Services

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 63-72

7. Health Insurance in the Public Sector

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 73-90

8. Long-Term Care Industry

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 91-102

9. Antitrust in the Health Care Sector

   • Warren Greenberg

   Pages 103-118

10. Regulation and Competition in Health Care

    • Warren Greenberg

    Pages 119-134

11. Technology and Rationing in Health Care

    • Warren Greenberg

    Pages 135-151

12. Insights from Canada, Israel, and the Netherlands

    • Warren Greenberg

    Pages 152-164

13. Back Matter

    Pages 165-170

    PDF

This book is an economist's view of the health care marketplace. It exam­ ines the incentives of physicians, patients, firms and the role of government in the health care sector in a world of limited resources. Several themes run through this book. First, health care is a business. To an economist this means that firms maximize profits. Perhaps this is not always so, but I have yet to see a better theory of how health care firms behave. The health care industry, therefore, is not much different in eco­ nomic terms from other industries. At one time, economists pointed to the asymmetry of information between the physician provider and the patient as one difference between health care and other industries. Physicians often know a great deal about treating an illness while the patient knows little or nothing. But the movement toward managed care in the United States has partially closed the information gap (although perhaps creating other prob­ lems). Indeed, the advent of managed care has propelled health care into a business. Information is another theme of the book.

• Industrial Organization
• Public Sector
• care
• competition
• economics
• economy
• health
• health care
• hospital
• insurance
• integration
• organizations
• regulation
• service
• trust

• Department of Health Services Management and Policy School of Public Health and Health Services, The George Washington University, N.W., USA

  Warren Greenberg

Policies and ethics