Charles E. Phelps provides a comprehensive look at our health care system, including how the current system evolved, how the health care sector behaves, and a detailed analysis of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" parts of the system—from technological advances (the "good") to variations in treatment patterns (the "bad") to hidden costs and perverse incentives (the "ugly"). He shows that much of the cost of health care ultimately derives from our own lifestyle choices and thus that educati...

Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) plays an important role in health policy debates, helping to shape resource allocation and pricing decisions. Yet many economists also recognize that the current framework can offer misleading and incomplete results. Current CEA methods imply that health improvements are equally valuable to those in good health and poor health, which fails to recognize the increased value of health improvements for those with severe illness or disability. Valuing Healt...

Systems engineering offers a set of capabilities and competencies to design and manage complex systems as they evolve. Drawing from social choice research and systems engineering practice, Making Better Choices examines how we make decisions together and the tools we use to arrive at those decisions. It takes a critical look at the rules and methods we apply to important decisions--from how we run meetings to how we elect presidents--with an interest in how we can improve these me...

In this book, Phelps and Parente explore the US health care system and set out the case for its reform. They trace the foundations of today’s system, and show how distortions in the incentives facing participants in the health care market could be corrected in order to achieve lower costs, a higher quality of care, a higher level of patient safety, and a more efficient allocation of health care resources.Phelps and Parente propose novel yet economically robust changes to US tax law...

Can we really use economic thinking to understand our health care system? Health Economics, now in its sixth edition, not only shows how this is done, but also provides the tools to analyze the economic behavior of patients and providers in health care markets.Health Economics combines current economic theory, recent research, and up-to-date empirical studies into a comprehensive overview of the field. Key changes to this edition include:additional ...