American Health Care: Government, Market Processes and the Public Interest

by Feldman,Roger

• ISBN13: 9780765806765
• ISBN10: 0765806762
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1999-12-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

President Clinton's health-care reform proposals of 1993 represented the most far-reaching social engineering attempted in the United States since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The Clinton plan would have herded almost all Americans under age sixty-five into large, government-sponsored health insurance purchasing alliances that would have offered standard benefits at regulated prices.Despite the recent resurgence in proposals for such shunned policies, the critical literature has failed to offer a cogent analysis of why government control of health care does not work. American Health Care delivers that analysis. This powerful volume brings together fourteen leading experts in economics, law, history, and medicine to examine why untoward consequences usually follow when government sets out to do good things.The book demonstrates, for example, how hospital-rate regulation raises hospital prices, that "no-fault" medical malpractice increases the occurrence of faulty medicine and that FDA regulation is a major cause for the escalating cost and long delays for new drugs. Part I, "Health Insurance and Finance", traces the genesis and development of Medicare and argues the consumer advantages of medical savings accounts and written health contracts. Part II, "Health-care Services", explores the fallacies of antitrust policies and attacks community rating for making health insurance unaffordable to young workers. Part III, "Drugs, Devices and Medication", contains a powerful critique of how FDA restrictions increase health risks, and critiques health-care regulations. The concluding part, "Health-care Personnel" explores improvements in private-section regulation of feesand the supply and quality of health professionals.American Health Care proposes reasonable balances between government and market options to supply health services, showing how the market can go further in performing crit

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Mark V. Pauly
Introduction	1	(14)
Roger D. Feldman
Part I: Health Insurance and Finance
The Genesis and Development of Medicare	15	(72)
Ronald Hamowy
Medicare's Progeny: The 1996 Health Care Legislation	87	(32)
Charlotte Twight
Making Room for Medical Savings Accounts in the U.S. Health Care System	119	(26)
Gail A. Jensen
Freedom of Contract: The Unexplored Path to Health Care Reform	145	(26)
Clark C. Havighurst
Part II: Health Care Services
Hospital Regulation and Antitrust Paradoxical Policies	171	(30)
Barbara A. Ryan
Antidiscrimination Principle in Health Care: Community Rating and Preexisting Conditions	201	(28)
Richard A. Epstein
State Health Care Reform: Protecting the Provider	229	(40)
Michael A. Morrisey
Part III: Drugs and Medication
Regulation of the Pharmaceutical Industry	269	(16)
Ronald W. Hansen
Ignorance is Death: The FDA's Advertising Restrictions	285	(28)
Paul H. Rubin
Exploring Free Market Certification of Medical Devices	313	(34)
Noel D. Campbell
Part IV: Health Care Personnel
Physician Fees and Price Controls	347	(18)
H. E. Frech, III
The Changing Role of Licensure in Promoting Incentives for Quality in Health Care	365	(20)
Shirley V. Svorny
Liability Reforms: Traditional and Radical Alternatives	385	(34)
Patricia M. Danzon
About the Editor	419	(2)
About the Contributors	421	(6)
Index	427