The Economics of Health and Health Care or The Interrogators

The Economics of Health and Health Care

Author: Sherman Folland

This clear, step-by-step best-selling introduction to the economics of health and health care thoroughly develops and explains economic ideas and models to reflect the full spectrum of the most current health economics literature. This book uses core economic themes as basic as supply and demand, as venerable as technology or labor issues, and as modern as the economics of information. Chapter topics include health care, health capital, information, health insurance markets, managed care, nonprofit firms, hospitals, physicians and labor, the pharmaceutical industry, government intervention and regulation, and epidemiology and economics. Useful as a reference work for health service researchers, government specialists, and physicians and others in the health care field.

Booknews

New edition of an introduction to the economics of health and health care that develops and explains economic ideas and models and reflects the full spectrum of the most current health economics literature. In the 26 chapters, Folland (economics, Oakland U.), Allen C. Goodman (economics, Wayne State U.) and Miron Stano (economics and management, Oakland U.) provide analytic tools of economics and econometrics as applied to contemporary health issues. Topics include basic economic tools, supply and demand, information, insurance and organization of health providers, technology, labor, hospitals and nursing homes, social insurance, and policy issues and analyses. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

Pt. I	Basic economics tools	1
Ch. 1	Introduction	1
Ch. 2	Microeconomic tools for health economics	20
Ch. 3	Statistical tools for health economics	51
Ch. 4	Economic efficiency and cost benefit analysis	68
Pt. II	Supply and demand	89
Ch. 5	The production of health	89
Ch. 6	The production, cost, and technology of health care	111
Ch. 7	Demand for health capital	137
Ch. 8	Demand and supply of health insurance	153
Ch. 9	Consumer choice and demand	176
Pt. III	Information and insurance markets	199
Ch. 10	Asymmetric information and agency	199
Ch. 11	The organization of health insurance markets	215
Ch. 12	Managed care	241
Ch. 13	Nonprofit firms	270
Pt. IV	Key players in the health care sector	294
Ch. 14	Hospitals and long-term care	294
Ch. 15	The physician's practice	313
Ch. 16	Health care labor markets and professional training	331
Ch. 17	The pharmaceutical industry	358
Pt. V	Social insurance	383
Ch. 18	Equity, efficiency, and need	383
Ch. 19	Government intervention in health care markets	407
Ch. 20	Government regulation : principal regulatory mechanisms	430
Ch. 21	Social insurance	461
Ch. 22	Comparative health care systems and health system reform	491
Pt. VI	Special topics	525
Ch. 23	The health economics of bads	525
Ch. 24	Epidemiology and economics : HIV/AIDS in Africa	541

Books about: Cuba after Castro or The Practical Student

The Interrogators: Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against Al Qaeda

Author: Chris Mackey

In a narrative that reads like a spy thriller, Chris Mackey takes us inside a small team of American military interrogators confronting an enemy unlike any other they had ever seen—in a war not of missiles and tanks, but of sleeper cells and suicide bombers. Mackey reveals how his team managed to crack some of the hardest cases they encountered, creating highly sophisticated ruses and elaborate trickery to bluff, worry, and confuse their opponents into yielding up precious information. He tells as well of mistakes made: blown interrogations, abuses against prisoners, and failures of American intelligence. THE INTERROGATORS is a riveting memoir that lifts the curtain for the first time on the hidden backstage of America's war against terrorism.

Author Biography: Greg Miller is a national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

Chris Mackey joined the army and was assigned to the intelligence corps as an interrogator.

Raymond Puffer - KLIATT

During these days of controversy about prisoners' rights in Guantanamo, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and heated discussions about torture, an insider's view of the Army's detainee centers and interrogation rooms is especially welcome. Author Chris Mackey is, one supposes, as close as anyone can be to a professional inquisitor in America. His book is neither defensive nor accusatory in nature; neither an apologia nor an expose, but rather the straightforward account of a highly specialized US Army Reservist called from his civilian job to serve in Afghanistan. His training background was both extensive and impressive: Army Intelligence School at Fort Huachua, Arabic and German at the Monterrey foreign language school, various courses in arcane subjects, and cross training by British counterparts. Then finally it was off to Afghanistan, interrogating Al Queda suspects on their way to Cuba. Mackey reveals the inside of a tough and controversial business that few outsiders can appreciate or really understand. For one thing, deliberate brutality and torture are shunned by intelligence examiners; not only is it strictly forbidden, but the results can never be trusted anyway. Subtlety and outright trickery are much more effective, and interviewers prefer a wide array of psychological games and incredibly devious techniques they often improvise on the spot. Frequently it is a nimble mind-to-mind struggle with captives who are thoroughly schooled in resistance tactics, and consequently their successes can be few. But if the work is often frustrating, it is nevertheless fascinating and highly rewarding, and their occasional successes can be measured in lives. This book is a rare eye-opener intoan elite world that few people know anything about. Adult readers and YAs from all sectors will find it fascinating. KLIATT Codes: SA*—Exceptional book, recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2004, Little, Brown, 483p. illus., Ages 15 to adult.