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.
Designed for use in upper-division undergraduate economics studies, the book is suitable for students and lecturers in health economics, microeconomics, public health policy and practice, and health and society. It is also accessible to professional students in programs such as public policy, public health, business, and law.
The author of more than 60 peer-reviewed articles covering the fields of health economics, health policy, medical decision analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis of various medical interventions and related topics, Phelps also wrote a leading textbook in the field, Health Economics, now in its fifth edition, and the book Eight Questions You Should Ask About Our Health Care System (Even if the Answers Make You Sick).
Phelps held a variety of leadership positions, including chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. There he created a PhD program in health services research and policy.
In 1991, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and to the National Bureau for Economic Research. He served two terms on the Report Review Committee of the National Academies.[4][5]
Phelps participated from 1997 to 2007 in the Association of American Universities' Committee on Digital Technology and Intellectual Property Rights. He also testified before Congress in June 1998 on issues pertaining to the implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty[6] and has spoken on related matters in conferences on these issues sponsored by, among others, the Department of Commerce. He also testified, in July 2005, on patent reform for the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.[7]
Phelps received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Pomona College in Claremont, California in 1965. He then earned an MBA in hospital administration and a PhD in business economics from the University of Chicago in 1973.[8]
After meeting as undergraduates at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., Chuck and Dale Phelps completed doctoral and medical degrees at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University in Chicago, respectively. The couple joined the University in 1984. Initially a professor of political science and economics, Chuck Phelps held a variety of leadership positions in his nearly three decades at Rochester, including director of the public policy analysis program and chair of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine (now the Department of Public Health Sciences) in the School of Medicine and Dentistry. He was elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and as a fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, both in 1991.
Chuck Phelps was delighted to learn that his former colleague was chosen by the University for the Phelps Professorship. For many years, he and Brown were both members of the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, as well as having faculty appointments together in the College of Arts, Science and Engineering. During that time, students often asked both men to publicly debate health care policy, seeking a lively and well-informed debate about important contemporary issues. Phelps, the economist, emphasized a conservative perspective that proper market incentives would yield a better health delivery system; Brown, the historian, advocated for the liberal argument that single-payer models have proven more effective in most industrialized nations.
The CHOICE Institute welcomed Professor Emeritus Charles E. Phelps, PhD, for the 2019 CHOICE Institute Annual Symposium. Dr. Phelps provided an overview of multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods.
He discussed how to use MCDA in a budget-constrained decision context, and demonstrate potential uses for individuals. The seminar concluded with an exercise using alternative group choice mechanisms and a discussion of their merits.
Charles E. Phelps started his career at the RAND Corporation, working from 1971-1984, when he joined the University of Rochester as a professor and director of the public policy analysis program. He later became the provost of the University of Rochester until his retirement. He is an expert on health and health care economics.
Hoover Institution Press today released Eight Questions You Should Ask about Our Health Care System (Even if the Answers Make You Sick), a book by Charles E. Phelps. Phelps is a health care economist who has spent 27 years teaching at the University of Rochester on that topic. In Eight Questions, Phelps offers a comprehensive look at the U.S. health care system, providing in-depth answers to eight key questions that shed light on the economic issues that are central to understanding how to fix the U.S. health care system.
In Eight Questions, Phelps details the economic issues that must be addressed in order to fix U.S. health care system. He also provides an overview of how the current system evolved and then details how the health care sector operates.
Each chapter answers a pointed question about the U.S. health care system to help people become better informed on how the U.S. health care system works so that we can understand how to fix it. Phelps explains many misunderstood economic issues, such as incentives that lead to growing costs, the effect of the baby boom generation, regional differences in medical spending, hidden costs, and employee-paid insurance premiums. Phelps also explains that, in many ways, lifestyle choices dominate the health outcomes people realize during their lifetimes. Specifically, Phelps says that much of the high cost of health care ultimately derives from lifestyle choices: smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, and alcohol abuse (plus, to a much smaller extent, sexual behavior and illicit drug use). Because of this, Phelps discerns that education may well be the most powerful agent of health reform that the United States can institute.
Charles E. Phelps is the provost emeritus, professor of community and preventive medicine, and professor of politics and economics at the University of Rochester. He has been a member of the Institute of Medicine since 1991 and is author of the textbook Health Economics, 4th edition (2010).
For more information on Eight Questions You Should Ask about Our Health Care System (Even if the Answers Make You Sick), visit hooverpress.org. For more information on the Hoover Institution, visit hoover.org or find us on Facebook (keyword: Hoover Institution).
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