An Undisciplined Economist

Robert G. Evans on Health Economics, Health Care Policy, and Population Health

Morris L. Barer, Greg L. Stoddart, Kimberlyn M. McGrail, Chris B. McLeod, Kimberlyn M. Mcgrail

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780773547155
• eBook ISBN: 9780773599475
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

For four decades Robert Evans has been Canada’s foremost health policy analyst and commentator, playing a leadership role in the development of both health economics and population health at home and internationally. An Undisciplined Economist collects Evans’ most important contributions and includes two new articles.

The topics addressed range widely, from the peculiar structure of the health care industry to the social determinants of the health of entire populations to the misleading role that economists have sometimes played in health policy debates. Written with Evans' characteristic clarity, candour, and wit, these essays unabashedly expose health policy myths and the special interests that lie behind them. He refutes claims that public health insurance is unsustainable, that the health care costs of an aging population will bankrupt Canada, that user charges will make the health care system more efficient, and that health care is the most important determinant of a population’s health.

An Undisciplined Economist is a valuable collection for those familiar with Evans’ work, a lucid introduction for those new to the fields of health economics, health policy, and population health, and a fitting tribute to an outstanding scholar.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors’ Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• 1 Slouching Toward Chicago: Regulatory Reform as Revealed Religion (1982)
• 2 Toward a Healthier Economics: Reflections on Ken Bassett’s Problem (1998)
• 3 The TSX Gives a Short Course in Health Economics: It’s the Prices, Stupid! (2010)
• 4 A New Paradigm for Health Economics? We Already Have Three! (2012)
• Further Reading
• 5 Hang Together, or Hang Separately: The Viability of a Universal Health Care System in an Aging Society (1987)
• 6 User Fees for Health Care: Why a Bad Idea Keeps Coming Back (Or, What’s Health Got to Do With It?) (1995)
• 7 Going for the Gold: The Redistributive Agenda behind Market-Based Health Care Reform (1997)
• 8 Modelling the Benefits of Insurance: Here Comes the Insurance Salesman (2004)
• Further Reading
• Foreword
• 9 Supplier-Induced Demand: Some Empirical Evidence and Implications (1974)
• 10 Incomplete Vertical Integration in the Health Care Industry: Pseudomarkets and Pseudopolicies (1983)
• 11 Aging and Health Care Utilization: New Evidence on Old Fallacies (1987)
• 12 Political Wolves and Economic Sheep: The Sustainability of Public Health Insurance in Canada (2005)
• Further Reading
• Foreword
• 13 Producing Health, Consuming Health Care
• 14 Introduction (Chapter 1) to the Book Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? (1994)
• 15 Health, Hierarchy, and Hominids: Biological Correlates of the Socioeconomic Gradient in Health (1996)
• 16 What, Me Worry? The Second Annual Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture (2013)
• Further Reading
• Editors’ Postscript
• Contributors
• Index