This paper summarizes the many aspects of public policy for health care. I first consider government policy affecting individual behaviors. Government intervention to change individual actions such as smoking and drinking is frequently justified on externality grounds. External costs of smoking...

Drug pricing in the U.S. is a persistently vexing policy problem. While there is agreement among many policy analysts that supra competitive prices are necessary to promote innovation; significant disagreements arise over how much pricing discretion prescription drug manufacturers should be...