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Robert
F. Graboyes, MSHA, PhD Senior
Fellow for Health and Economics NFIB
Research Foundation | 1201 F Street NW, Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20004 202.314.2063 | bob.graboyes@nfib.org
| www.NFIB.com/DrBob Professor
(health economics): VCU | UVa | GMU | GWU Personal:
rfgraboyes@gmail.com | www.robertgraboyes.com Health Economics Frequent
question from students: “Dr.
Graboyes, what is health economics?” All
resources are scarce, so people must make choices. Some of these choices
affect our health. Health economics explores scarcity, choices, and the
impacts on health. Here are a few questions that health economists explore.
We touch these and many other questions during my health economics courses: 1. How do we
decide which of three patients should get a transplantable kidney? 2. To improve
health the most, should we spend $1,000,000 on health care, education, or the
environment? 3. How is a
one-story house a substitute for a hip replacement? 4. How much do we
spend on health care? 5. Why has the
average human lifespan risen from 30 to around 80? 6. What incentives
induce a heroin addict to stay clean? 7. Which is more
valuable: a human life today or two human lives ten years from now? 8. Do mandatory
seat belt laws save lives? 9. How do we
define an improvement in health? 10. Why are there more obese
people today? 11. What are the maximum and
minimum costs of health insurance? 12. How much should the U.S.
spend on Medicare? 13. Are we spending too much on
health care? 14. How do doctors’
interests diverge from patients’ interests? 15. What is the cost of a
medical education? 16. Why do health care costs
rise so rapidly? 17. Why does insurance make us
take risks? 18. Why do some people lack
health insurance? 19. How does U.S. health care
stack up against other countries’ health care? 20. Why do physicians need
licenses? 21. When should the government
involve itself in health care? 22. Why do we get health
insurance from our employers? 23. Why is it inescapable that
we place a dollar value on human life? 24. What is the danger of
placing a dollar value on human life? 25. Do I place a higher or
lower value on your life than you do? 26. Are profits unusually high
in the pharmaceutical industry? 27. What is the ideal length of
time for the FDA to review the safety of a drug? 28. Should health insurance
cover gym memberships? 29. Should blood banks be
allowed to pay money for blood donations? 30. Does cigarette advertising
increase the number of smokers? 31. Are smoking-related deaths
good or bad for the finances of state governments? 32. Should insurance companies
be allowed to use genetic information on subscribers? 33. Can doctors create demand
for medical services? 34. Is Canadian health care
really cheaper than U.S. health care? 35. What’s the best way
to measure the quality of a hospital? 36. Will a rise in the price of
insulin reduce the amount that diabetics purchase? 37. Can consumers competently
judge the quality of medical care? 38. Will a clean needle program
increase the incidence of intravenous drug use? 39. How much do malpractice and
malpractice insurance add to the cost of health care? 40. When you go to buy
insurance, how are you like a used car dealer? 41. What are Medicare and
Medicaid? 42. What impact do foreign
medical graduates have on doctors' salaries? 43. Why was medicine a somewhat
undesirable, fairly low-paying profession until the early 20th Century? 44.
How did medicine become a
highly respected, well-paid profession in the 20th Century? 45. Will medicine become a
less-respected, less-well-paid profession in the 21st Century? 46. When you get an x-ray in
Virginia, how come the radiologist reading it is in India? 47. Is there a quick, simple,
affordable way that Congress and/or the President can fix most of the
problems in the American health care system? I
try to answer questions 1-46 in class. I can answer question 47 here: “No.” |
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