Health Care Economics

Catalog description

This is a course in the use of economic principles in understanding health behaviors, and analyzing markets for health, health insurance, and health care. The course covers basic microeconomic principles and their applications in examining how consumer and producer behaviors and market structure affect the demand and supply of goods and services. Conceptual frameworks describe health as a capital good that individuals invest in based on costs and benefits, and the role that health insurance plays in determining the demand for health care. Students will study health insurance from the perspectives of consumers, providers, as well as the society at large.