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Reviews the book "National Health Insurance," edited by Robert D. Eilers and Sue Moyerman.

Reviews the book "National Health Insurance: What Now, What Later, What Never?," Edited by Mark V. Pauly.

Reviews the book "Medical Care, Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy," by Rashi Fein.

Reviews the book "Managed Competition in Health Care: Workshop Proceedings, Canberra, 23 August 2002."

A review of the book "Bipolar Bear and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Health Insurance: A Fable for Grownups," by Kathleen Founds, is presented.

One of the best known tradeoffs in insurance economics is between risk aversion and moral hazard. Greater insurance coverage implies less risk bearing by the insured but induces greater moral hazard. As a corollary, the less demand responds to price, the greater should be the coverage of the loss (Zeckhauser 1970; Ehrlich and Becker 1972; Pauly 1986). The tradeoff between risk aversion and moral hazard has given rise to much health economics literature on the desirability of cost sharing in health insurance, i.e., the price to the insured at the time of use, and we now know a good bit empirically about this tradeoff (Newhouse and the Insurance Experiment Group 1993, ch. 4). Perhaps based on these findings, many now believe that some initial cost sharing is optimal; the outcome should not be the comer solution of no cost sharing (e.g., U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care 1990, p. 63). This paper argues that widespread health insurance creates another important tradeoff, less well recognized in the literature, between efficiency in production and selection. By efficiency in production, I mean least cost treatment of a patient's medical problem, holding quality constant. Thus, efficiency includes the quantity of services used to treat the problem, as well as the unit price of those services. By selection, I mean actions of economic agents on either side of the market to exploit unpriced risk heterogeneity and break pooling arrangements, with the result that some consumers may not obtain the insurance they desire. Whereas the essence of the moral hazard-risk aversion tradeoff is captured by the cost that the patient bears at the time of use, e.g., the size of a deductible, the essence of the selection-efficiency tradeoff is captured by the cost the health plan or medical provider bears at the time of use, or the amount of supply-side cost sharing, to use the term of Ellis and McGuire (1993). Analogous to coinsurance on the demand side, supply-side cost sharing in its simplest form is a linear combination of fee-for-service and capitation pricing, but nonlinear schedules are obviously possible. This paper largely concerns the tradeoff between these two bases of pricing in both the health insurance and the medical care delivery markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Health Insurance Plans: Studies in Organizational Diversity," edited by Milton I. Roemer, Donald DuBois, and Shirley Rich.

The article reviews the book "Risk-based Contributions to Private Health Insurance," edited by Mark C. Hornbrook.

The article reviews the book "Medicaid: Intergovernmental Trends and Options."

This article reviews the book "Free for All? Lessons From the RAND Health Insurance Experiment," by Joseph P. Newhouse.

Reviews the book "Health Insurance and Canadian Public Policy," by Malcolm G. Taylor.

Reviews the book 'Hospital Costs and Health Insurance,' by Martin S. Feldstein.

Reviews the book 'Hospital Costs and Health Insurance,' by Martin Feldstein.

Reviews the book "Sickness and Insurance," by Harry Alvin Millis.

Reviews the book "An International Assessment of Health Care Financing: Lessons for Developing Countries," edited by David W. Dunlop and Jo. M. Martins.

Reviews the book "Health Insurance in Developing Countries. The Social Security Approach," by Aviva Ron, Brian Abel-Smith and Giovanni Tamburi.

The article reviews the book "National Health Insurance in the United States and Canada: Race, Territory and the Roots of Difference," by Gerard W. Boychuk.

The article reviews the book "Mandate for 21st Century America: Universal Health Insurance," by David F. Drake.

Reviews the book "The Theory of Demand for Health Insurance," by John A. Nyman.

Reviews the book 'The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America,' by Beatrix Hoffman.

Reviews the book 'Size Matters: The Health Insurance Market for Small Firms,' by Jill Mathews Yegian.

The article reviews the book "Insuring National Health Care: The Canadian Experience," by Malcolm G. Taylor.

Reviews the non-fiction book 'Boomerang: Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics,' by Theda Skocpol.

Reviews the book "Expanding the Employer-Provided Health Insurance System: Effects on Workers and Their Employers," Sheila R. Zedlewski.

The article reviews the book "Health Insurance," by O. D. Dickerson.

The article reviews the book "The impact of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries," edited by Maria- Luisa Escobar, Charles C. Griffin and R. Paul Shaw.

The article reviews the book "Access to Care, Access to Justice: The Legal Debate over Private Health Insurance in Canada," edited by Colleen M. Flood, Kent Roach and Lorne Sossin.

The article reviews the book "The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America," by Beatrix Hoffman.

Reviews the book "Bonus Options in Health Insurance," by Peter Zweifel.

Reviews the book "Private Practice, Public Payment: Canadian Medicine and the Politics of Health Insurance, 1911-1966," by C. David Naylor.

This article presents information about the book "American Medicine Mobilizes," by James Rorty. The book is a forceful attempt to paint a picture, without the adjuncts of figures, tables, and charts, of medical economics, in the hope that both lay and medical readers might be encour- aged to look over their line fences and view each other with less suspicion and more tolerance. Chapter after chapter is devoted to the American Medical Association, "The State with the State," which as a business must use business methods, make business alliances, fight for survival and power. work in medical economics. In discussing the pervasive political and eco- nomic influence of the American Medical Association, Mr. Rorty, in true journalistic fashion, warms to his task. Their obstructionist tactics against voluntary health insurance plans make vivid reading. The last sections of the book are devoted to descriptions of such experiments for medical service as medical cooperatives and group hospitalization plans.

Reviews the book "Health Care for Americans," by C.-E.A. Winslow.

The article reviews the book "Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States Since 1930" by Beatrix Hoffman.

This article presents a review of the book "One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance," by Jill Quadagno.

Reviews the book "Universal Coverage: The Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance," by Rick Mayes.

Reviews the book "One Nation Uninsured: Why the US Has No National Health Insurance," by Jill Quadagno.

Reviews the book "The Theory of Demand for Health Insurance," by John A. Nyman.

Reviews the book 'The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America,' by Beatrix Hoffman.

The article reviews the book "Sickness and Insurance," by Harry Alvin Millis.

Reviews the book "Comprehensive Medical Services Under Voluntary Health Insurance: A Study of Windsor Medical Services," by Benjamin J. Darsky, Nathan Sinai and Solomon J. Axelrod.

The article reviews the book "Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir," by Sonya Huber.

The article reviews the book "One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance," by Jill Quadagno.

Reviews the book `...And the Pursuit of National Health: The Incremental Strategy Toward National Health Insurance in the United States of America,' by Jaap Kooijman.

Reviews the book 'Insuring the Nation's Health,' by Judith Feder, Jack Hadley and John Holahan.

Reviews the book "The Health Insurance Doctor," by Barbara N. Armstrong.