ECON 401 Health Care Market and Economics3 hours credit –Unique nature of health care as economic good, health care market and its participants including patients, physicians, and hospitals, and financing and delivery of personal health care in United States and other countries.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The course objective is to:
- Make you more aware of various economic issues pertaining to the health care industry;
- Provide you with various microeconomic concepts and tools that can be used to better understand some health care problems;
- Be able to understand basic microeconomic tools, apply these techniques to issues related to the production and distribution of medical services, and understand what health economists think is different about health care markets as compared to other markets;
- Be able to understand the role of economic incentives, competition (or lack thereof), and regulation on the functioning of the medical care system and should be able to use this information to assess the economic efficiency and equity aspects of the current system;
- Be able to conduct basic analysis of health care related industries;
- Have a global perspective and a broad understanding of institutional changes going on currently in the healthcare system and be able to analyze the economic aspects of medical care policy issues and reform proposals. Identify economic issues relevant to the health care policy debate.
- Discuss health policy related concepts involving efficiency and equality.
- Evaluate policies from an economic perspective.
- Evaluate the health care market place from a “systems” perspective Discuss the likely consequences of government regulation and market competition on the operation and performance of the health care industry.