Health Care for Us All: Getting More for Our Investment

Description

Health Care for Us All challenges the common belief that health care problems in the United States are difficult and possibly insoluble. Americans want to get more for their health care spending, including insurance coverage for all that is personal, portable, and permanent. They want a system that respects incentives for quality care, exhibits a responsible approach to the budget, and is sustainable. Health Care for Us All adopts these five objectives and applies an efficiency filter to identify the virtually unique framework that meets all objectives. Impediments to achieving Americans' goals can be summarized under the rubrics of too little insurance, too little income, and too little properly functioning market. The efficient remedy for each is the subject of the book. Related philosophical as well as economic issues, such as why there should be government involvement in health care, are analyzed.

Earl L. Grinols has served as Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University since 2004. He previously taught at MIT, Cornell University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois. Professor Grinols worked as a research economist for the Department of the Treasury and as Senior Economist for the Council of Economic Advisers. He has extensively published in the fields of finance, public finance, international economics, and macroeconomics. He is the author of three previous books, including Gambling in America: Costs and Benefits (2004), also published by Cambridge University Press. He has testified before Congress and in numerous statehouses, and his work has been cited by leading newspapers and news outlets such as the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, the Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Washington Post, New York Times, and many others. James W. Henderson, who is Ben H. Williams Professor in Economics at Baylor University, received his Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University. He has taught at Baylor in Waco, Texas, since 1981. Professor Henderson's health care research on diverse issues such as alternatives to pharmaceutical patents, cost effectiveness of cancer screening, availability of hospital services in rural areas, hospital location decisions, and the cost effectiveness of prenatal care has appeared in various journals, including Pharmacoeconomics, Health Care Financing Review, Journal of Rural Studies, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, and the Journal of Regional Science. His current research includes examining the cost of state-level health insurance mandates. Professor Henderson's textbook, Health Economics and Policy, is now in its fourth edition.

'Two Baylor economists apply economic principles, rather than political considerations, to health care reform and conclude that we can achieve universal coverage, lower costs, and satisfied consumers and patients. Their important contribution to the debate is showing that the key to reforming our health care system isn't expanding government control, which has largely caused most of the current problems, but getting the economic incentives right.' Dr Merrill Matthews, Institute for Policy Innovation 'Grinols and Henderson have produced a complete package for understanding and solving the complex issues in health care markets, with a bonus of a really well-written and easily readable economics primer. Even if your interest is not health care, you will enjoy their witty but relevant discussion of how markets work. If health care is your interest, they present a provocative plan to solve the problem of providing universal access while at the same time allowing market forces to give both providers and users the incentives necessary to control costs. This book should be on the must-read list for anyone seriously interested in health care reform.' Thomas R. Saving, Texas A & M University 'Professors Grinols and Henderson make an important contribution to the health policy debate at a time when the nation is highly focused on this issue. In particular, their sound analysis of the problems we face and their clear explanation of underlying economic principles can guide policy makers in assessing the potential impact of major changes they may propose to the one-sixth of the economy represented by our health sector.' Grace-Marie Turner, President, Galen Institute 'Health Care for Us All is first-rate analysis of our healthcare problems. Professors Earl Grinols and James Henderson, two scholars at Baylor University, demonstrate that there are solutions to the nation's problems that contain none of the undesirable side effects that would be seen in the enactment of currently proposed health care reforms for the United States or the failed socialized systems of some other industrialized nations. Applying basic economic principles, they present their 'Targeted Intervention Plan,' which is readily comprehensible, makes sense to the ordinary person, but most of all provides a compassionate delivery of health care services.' Walter E. Williams, George Mason University