This clear, step-by-step best-selling introduction to the economics of health and health care thoroughly develops and explains economic ideas and models to reflect the full spectrum of the most current health economics literature. This book uses core economic themes as basic as supply and demand, as venerable as technology or labor issues, and as modern as the economics of information. Chapter topics include health care, health capital, information, health insurance markets, managed care, nonprofit firms, hospitals, physicians and labor, the pharmaceutical industry, government intervention and regulation, and epidemiology and economics. Useful as a reference work for health service researchers, government specialists, and physicians and others in the health care field.