Featured Entry: Health Care, by Michael A. Morrisey
Health care is different from other goods and services: the health care product is ill-defined, the outcome of care is uncertain, large segments of the industry are dominated by nonprofit providers, and payments are made by third parties such as the government and private insurers. Many of these factors are present in other industries as well, but in no other industry are they all present. It is the interaction of these factors that tends to make health care unique.
Even so, it is easy to make too much of the distinctiveness of the health care industry. Various players in the industry—consumers and providers, to name two—respond to incentives just as in other industries. Read More.
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