Eight Questions You Should Ask about Our Health Care System (Even If the Answers Make You Sick) (Hoover Institution Press Publication) - Hardcover

Charles E. Phelps

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817910549 ISBN 13: 9780817910549

Publisher: Hoover Institution Press, 2010

Synopsis

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 education may well be the most powerful form of health reform we can envision.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

To comprehend the likely consequences of federal health-care legislation and the private-sector response, it is important to understand how the current system evolved and learn some details about how the health-care sector behaves. In Eight Questions You Should Ask about Our Health Care System (Even if the Answers Make You Sick), Charles E. Phelps provides a comprehensive look at our health-care system, including 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").

Phelps shows that our system seems deliberately to make it difficult for people to understand and react to incentives in our health care and details the specific complications our federal tax system creates in these matters. He provides examples of how incentives alter the behavior of doctors, hospitals, and other health-care providers and shows why the system will remain both costly and ineffective until we fix the incentives. Perhaps most important, he reveals that much of the cost of health care ultimately derives from our own lifestyle choices and thus that education may well be the most powerful form of health reform we can envision.

Charles E. Phelps is University Professor and Provost Emeritus at the University of Rochester.

About the Author:

Charles E. Phelps is University Professor and Provost Emeritus at the University of Rochester.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0817910549
• ISBN 13: 9780817910549
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 162