Article 3
Getzen’s Health Economics & Financing, 5th Edition
Copyright © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Chapter 14: The Role of Government and Public Goods
QUESTIONS
Who paid for Pasteur to discover bacteria?
Are clean water or the theory of relativity public goods? Are they free or costly?
Should treatment of syphilis be part of the public health system or private medical care? What about psoriasis? Psychosis? Scoliosis?
Why not charge people full price for vaccinations?
QUESTIONS cont.
Why are new surgical techniques developed with public funds whereas pharmaceutical research and development is conducted privately by for-profit firms?
Why pay for cost-benefit analysis to decide which public programs are worthwhile instead of using prices to let the market decide?
Should I pay taxes to care for the poor?
Is medical care for homeless and terminally ill AIDS patients a public good or a waste of money?
QUESTIONS cont.
Do the preferences of smokers, patients who are mentally ill, or unborn children count when assessing the efficiency of the public health system?
Does the Food and Drug Administration, or any other agency that regulates health, operate in the interest of the public, in the interest of the people who work there, or for the special-interest lobbies?
Do people vote for what is good for society or what is good for themselves?
14.1 THE ROLES OF GOVERNMENT
- Markets are Perfectly Efficient, but only with Perfect Competition
- Government in a Mixed Economy
- How Government Works
14.1 THE ROLES OF GOVERNMENT cont.
- The Voluntary Sector
- Government Is Necessary, and Costly
- Markets are Costly, Limited and Always Regulated
14.2 GOVERNMENT HEALTH FINANCING
14.3 LAW AND ORDER
14.4 PUBLIC GOODS AND EXTERNALITIES
- Privatizing Public Goods
- Insurance Makes Any Good More Public
- Externalities
- The Coase Theorem: Transaction Costs and Property Rights
14.5 MONOPOLY AND MARKET FAILURE
14.6 INFORMATION
- Rational Consumer Ignorance
- Social Costs Depend on the Number of People
- Milk or Bread: Which Is More Public?
- Infectious Disease Externalities
14.6 INFORMATION cont.
- Epidemics
- The Sanitary Revolution: A Moral Campaign for Public Health
- Formation of the U.S. Public Health Service
14.7 DRUGS, SEX AND WAR: PUBLIC HEALTH IN ACTION
- Addiction
- Sexual Behavior
- Who Counts as a Citizen? Abortion and Other Dilemmas
- War and Public Health
14.8 POLITICS, REGULATION AND COMPETITION
- Politicians: Entrepreneurs Who Try to Get Votes
- Government as the Citizen’s Agent
- Public Welfare Maximization
- Regulatory Capture
- Bureaucratic Objectives
- Political Interest Group Balance
14.8 POLITICS, REGULATION AND COMPETITION cont.
- Public Goods Make Almost Everybody Better Off, But Nobody Happy
- Winners and Losers
14.9 TRUST, CARE AND DISTRIBUTION
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.