This course will show students how microeconomic principles to health care. Coursework will introduce students to markets and the theory of perfect competition and will apply these concepts to health care markets for the provision of hospital and physician care and to the market for health insurance. Economic and regulatory responses to market breakdown will be explored in the context of consolidated health care firms, the lack of perfect information regarding health care service quality, non-homogeneity of services and barriers to entry into health care markets. Additional topics will include dynamic adjustment in health care markets, the concept of externalities in health care markets, quality issues and quality signals in health care markets and the implications of the erosion of consumer sovereignty.

Prerequisite: HSAM1100