How to Use This Site

The OLLI Home Page gives general information on the course.

In the top menu find the right class - Part 1 or Part 2. Each of the individual class sessions have pages with more information and resources.

Feel free to read (and comment!) on the Plain-Sense Blog - Go to Plain Sense Home

Contact Information - Doug Gentry

Email: gentryd@sou.edu

Phone: 541-261-8501

The U. S. Healthcare Market

Question: Are we getting full value for our healthcare dollar, and if not, is there a better way?

The market for healthcare services is an interesting study in both fundamental market principles and examples of market failure.

We’ll spend the first half of the class working to understand the demand for healthcare.

Then we will use our new understanding to look into the elements currently being discussed in Congress. As appropriate we will weave in models used in other highly developed countries.

Economic Concepts We Will Cover

• Determinants of demand for healthcare
• Impact of health insurance
• Moral hazard
• Physician agent problem
• Asymmetric information

Resources for More Information

• Tons of information on health and health care in the US (from the National Center of Health Statistics)
• World Health Organization - country comparisons and specific health topics around the world.
• Obama administration proposals on health care
• Some background slides
  http://plain-sense.com/olli/documents/HealthCare_OHSU_Gentry.pdf
• Plain-Sense Blog Remarks on Healthcare
  http://www.plain-sense.com/category/healthcare/
• Health Affairs Blog. Health Affairs is a non-partisan publication of Project Hope
  http://healthaffairs.org/blog/