The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care

by David Dranove

Book Overview

The American health care industry has undergone such dizzying transformations since the 1960s that many patients have lost confidence in a system they find too impersonal and ineffectual. Is their distrust justified and can confidence be restored? David Dranove, a leading health care economist, tackles these and other key questions in the first major economic and historical investigation of the field. Focusing on the doctor-patient relationship,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691102538
• ISBN13: 9780691102535
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Easy to Read and Informative

I am in Healthcare IT area and I learned lots of insights about the problems of the healthcare industry from this book for excelling our product offer to physicians. Great Book Great Author...

A Good Primary Text for Physicians in Training

This is an excellent book that covers the most important functional elements of health economics. I am a teaching Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the University of Virginia Health System and I plan to incorporate this book as a primary text for discussion in our resident program. The only deficiency is a lack of discussion of past, present, and future insurance models such as classic and discounted fee for service, capitation, defined benefit versus defined contribution, and medical savings accounts.

Excellent overview of history and challenges of health care

"The Economic Evolution of American Health Care" provides an excellent summary of the factors which have created our current health care system. Prof. Dranove clearly understands the complexities of health care and the dynamics which drive much of the public debate around it.

Factually supported, succinct and accurate

Dranove's book on managed care and the changes in healthcare delivery in the United States are well summarized in the opening chapters. Most importantly, however, is the author's insight into the core reasons for "deviations" in healthcare delivery, e.g. the economic incentives for offering healthcare services (or rationing of care) within managed care institutions, physicians and hospitals. Such understanding is truly critical to proposing any sort of rational solution to current managed care problems. Dranove's style and writing is excellent but buyer beware -- the non-medical reader should be aware that this topic in inherently dry despite its importance in our society. This book should be mandatory reading for all healthcare administrators, medical students and physicians.

Healthcare economics from a expert in the field

This book is an excellent primer that reviews the economics of healthcare. There is ample coverage of the history and the contemporary state of the subject that is organized and presented with clarity. Professor Dranove's conclusions are logically linked with fundamental economic principles that should enlighten both those with a healthcare background in the business aspects and those with a business background in the healthcare aspects of the largest market in the world. This is a "must-read" for people in any healthcare space and for business people desiring to increase their knowledge in the field presented in an easily digestible manner. I have derived much of this knowledge from various far-flung sources, but Professor Dranove's work does a better job of condensing valuable information on healthcare economics in a single manuscript than I was able to locate previously. I had the pleasure of Professor Dranove's instruction during my MBA studies at Kellogg and can attest to his expert knowledge and informed perspectives in both economic strategy and healthcare as presented here.