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Summary: "Health Economics and Financing is a primer for the economic analysis of medical markets. Its intended audiences are students of medicine, public health, policy, and administration who wish to engage the central economic issues of their field without prolonged preparatory work; beginning students in economics who wish to study an applied area in detail without recourse to extensive mathematical manipulation; and more advanced students in economics who may be familiar with analytical techniques but lack knowledge of the many institutional features that make the study of health and health care so unique and rewarding. This book draws upon the work of many scholars, but in keeping with its design as a primer for introducing students to the principles and concepts of health economics rather than its literature and research methods, the use of attribution, footnotes, and references is purposely limited. Suggestions for additional reading and more advanced source materials and databases are listed at the end of each chapter and are available on the instructor's website at www.wiley.com/go/getzen/healtheconomics6e. The first eleven chapters use a flow-of-funds approach to investigate the sources and uses of financing and to explore the incentives and organizational structure of the health care system. Transactions between patients and physicians (and others) are examined to see how profits are made, costs covered, contracts written (or implied), and regulations formed. The long-term consequences of exchanging services for money in a particular way are revealed by exploring the historical development of those distinctive features that characterize the industrial organization of health care: licensure, third-party insurance, nonprofit hospitals, and government regulation. The last five chapters take a wider macroeconomic perspective in order to explore the dynamics of change within the health care system and to explicitly consider determinants of national health spending and the role of governments in public and private health"-- Provided by publisher.