Łukasz Jasiński - Böcker

Problems related to the functioning of public healthcare systems encourage the search for alternative solutions, for example to ensure improved access to medical services. However, these proposals also require appropriate theoretical support to better present and apply them. This book draws on Austrian Economics to provide a theoretical framework to support greater involvement of the private sector to improve inefficiencies in public healthcare.The Austrian School of Economics has a solid theoretical output describing and explaining the functioning of many aspects of the market economy (e.g. money, prices, interest rate, or capital). This work applies those principles to a market-based healthcare system and its individual elements, including health insurance. The study in these chapters is divided into two parts. The first part contains the theoretical aspects of the functioning of a complete market system. Particular importance is placed on presenting health insurance as a market institution and exploring its role in the market system. This examination also includes an analysis of alternative forms of financing access to medical services, such as direct payments, medical savings accounts, medical subscriptions, and charity. Additionally, solid counterarguments are provided for so-called market failures: asymmetric information, public goods, and monopolies. The second part of the book explores the theoretical aspects of interventionism and the functioning of public systems, and aims to better highlight the sources of the associated problems.This work provides an important contribution to the literature on health economics, healthcare management and policy, and Austrian Economics more broadly. It is essential reading for health economists and those holding key public positions related to healthcare.Winner of the Award of the President of the Lublin Branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences for Humanities and Social Sciences for books published in 2021

Problems related to the functioning of public healthcare systems encourage the search for alternative solutions, for example to ensure improved access to medical services. However, these proposals also require appropriate theoretical support to better present and apply them. This book draws on Austrian Economics to provide a theoretical framework to support greater involvement of the private sector to improve inefficiencies in public healthcare.The Austrian School of Economics has a solid theoretical output describing and explaining the functioning of many aspects of the market economy (e.g. money, prices, interest rate, or capital). This work applies those principles to a market-based healthcare system and its individual elements, including health insurance. The study in these chapters is divided into two parts. The first part contains the theoretical aspects of the functioning of a complete market system. Particular importance is placed on presenting health insurance as a market institution and exploring its role in the market system. This examination also includes an analysis of alternative forms of financing access to medical services, such as direct payments, medical savings accounts, medical subscriptions, and charity. Additionally, solid counterarguments are provided for so-called market failures: asymmetric information, public goods, and monopolies. The second part of the book explores the theoretical aspects of interventionism and the functioning of public systems, and aims to better highlight the sources of the associated problems.This work provides an important contribution to the literature on health economics, healthcare management and policy, and Austrian Economics more broadly. It is essential reading for health economists and those holding key public positions related to healthcare.Winner of the Award of the President of the Lublin Branch of the Polish Academy of Sciences for Humanities and Social Sciences for books published in 2021

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as ObamaCare or PPACA), which was signed into US law in 2010, generated a lot of noise from both supporters and detractors. This book argues that the changes introduced by ObamaCare were, in the long history of government intervention in the US health system, generally not as new or novel as claimed. The scope of the changes introduced by ObamaCare is very wide and covers, among others: the health insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, employers, employees, or the uninsured. The structure of the book shows the individual causes, key assumptions, and impacts of the reform on individual elements or areas of the US health system. One of the most important aspects of the work is analysis of the phenomenon of the so-called ‘death spiral’. The changes introduced by ObamaCare reform make it possible to investigate the causes of this phenomenon on a country-wide scale and enable a broader analysis of its effects. The book will be of great interest to readers in the economics, management and policy of health and health care.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as ObamaCare or PPACA), which was signed into US law in 2010, generated a lot of noise from both supporters and detractors. This book argues that the changes introduced by ObamaCare were, in the long history of government intervention in the US health system, generally not as new or novel as claimed. The scope of the changes introduced by ObamaCare is very wide and covers, among others: the health insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, employers, employees, or the uninsured. The structure of the book shows the individual causes, key assumptions, and impacts of the reform on individual elements or areas of the US health system. One of the most important aspects of the work is analysis of the phenomenon of the so-called ‘death spiral’. The changes introduced by ObamaCare reform make it possible to investigate the causes of this phenomenon on a country-wide scale and enable a broader analysis of its effects. The book will be of great interest to readers in the economics, management and policy of health and health care.

The U.S. health care system is dominated by private and public (governmental) insurance which makes it difficult for many Americans to imagine access to health care without it. The health care system in the USA is sometimes mistakenly referred to as market-based, partly because of the previous lack of compulsory insurance.As this book shows, however, even before ObamaCare it was a system heavily influenced by the government. This short and accessible book demonstrates that governmental long-term interventionism in the American health insurance market has led to many contemporary serious problems, such as significant and uncontrolled increases in health care costs, rising health insurance prices, marginalization of direct payments, limited competition, and problems with uninsured Americans. Many observers wrongly blame the market for this state of affairs and demand more regulation, which further deteriorates the situation. The study is divided into two parts: an analysis of the history of interventions (and their effects) in the private health insurance market, and an analysis of the genesis and evolution of governmental Medicare and Medicaid insurance. Thus, the book constitutes a unique synthesis of Austrian theory of interventionism and the history of health insurance in the USA.This book is vital reading for health economists, managers, and policymakers, as well as those interested in the Austrian approach to economics.