Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Associate Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://robinhanson.com)
Office Hours: Officially Mon 6:00-7:00pm, Th 3:00-4:00pm, but I'm usually in at 10A Carow Hall. Email or call ahead (703-993-2326) if you want to be sure.
Catalog Entry:

Econ 496, 895 Health Economics (3:3:0). Prerequisites: ECON 306. Determinants of Health. Supply, Demand, and Institutions of Health Insurance and Care. Evaluation of Market Failure Rationales for Regulation.

Shannon Brownlee, Overtreated, Bloomsbury, 2007, ISBN: 1-58234-580-5. Sample price: $19.

Joseph P. Newhouse And The Insurance Experiment Group, Free For All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, Harvard University Press, 1993, ISBN: 0-674-31914-1, Sample Price $27.

Sherman Folland, Allen C. Goodman, Miron Stano, Economics of Health and Health Care, 4th Edition, Prentice Hall Business Publishing, 2007, ISBN: 0-13-100067-5, Sample Price $158.

Charles E. Phelps, Health Economics, Addison Wesley Publishing, 2003, ISBN: 0-321-06898-X, Sample Price $145.

For undergraduates: To become familiar with basic facts and issues in health economics, and to be able to make an economically-coherent defense of one's opinions on health policy questions.
For graduate students: To in addition write a coherent research (not term) paper related to health economics.

• Class Participation Please contribute to class discussions.
• Quizzes Three In-Class Quizzes will given. All examas are open book, open notes. Each quiz will have a random question from the Browlee book.
• Defended Opinions You will turn in written defenses of your opinions on three health policy question. Here (on the web) are things to keep in mind when writing your defended opinions.
• Research Paper Those who take this class as Econ 895, a graduate class, are required to write a research paper on a health economics topic of their choosing.

1. Should we reduce medical subsidies to instead pay for higher scores on physical fitness tests?
2. Should the U.S. adopt the following package of changes: move health insurance regulation from states to the federal level, cancel any rules requiring health plans to allow patients direct access to specialists, and only have mandated treatments for contagious conditions?
3. Should faith healers be legal? Consider these sub-issues: should they be able to charge for their services, treat children or only adults, use drugs or devices or only words and touching?

• Quizzes: Feb 14, Mar 6, Apr 3
• Defended Opinions: Mar 20, Apr 10, Apr 24
• Graduate Research Paper: May 8
• Final: 4:30-7:15pm, May 8.

1. 496: Class Participate 5%, 13% per Quiz, 13% per Defended Opinions, 17% final.
2. 895: 1/2 of grade above items (held to a higher standard), 1/2 research paper.

Lecture Readings and Sources

On the web, this links to a page of sources, most of which have links.

Disability Notice