Professor Modigliani argues that, owing to considerations derived from the model of perfect competition, price controls in general enhance economic welfare and that this applies in particular to health care. Maintains the diametric opposite on both counts: that the perfectly competitive model is...

Draws parallels between the contemporary community hospital and the traditional agricultural commons. Identifies four principal attributes of common field agriculture and matches them to contemporary arrangements in the management of the facilities of the community hospital. Points to several...

The post‐1978 micro‐economic reforms have dismantled China’s community‐funded rural health system, relying on paramedics called “barefoot doctors”. Examines the economic behaviour and incentives of village doctors (formerly “barefoot doctors”) as a response to a deregulated...

Examines the Clinton administration’s health‐care proposal, for a system of national health insurance in the USA. Investigates whether, if it had been implemented, it would have solved healthcare delivery system problems. Goes on to question why it failed to gain the approval of Congress....

The Republic of the Philippines is seeking to expand access to the formal sector of medical care. Concentrates on the alternative ways in which that expansion can be financed. First, provides the background by presenting data on mortality and morbidity as indicators of health status, and of...

In December 1989, the Government of Kenya implemented cost sharing reforms in a substantial portion of public health facilities. In September 1990 the Government suspended registration fees for out‐patient treatments, but reintroduced them in April 1992 after a lapse of a 20‐month period....

Thailand, like a number of other less‐developed countries, has experienced a rapid rise in the share of its national product that is being devoted to health. This paper examines the ways in which the country is paying for its preventive and curative care. Section 1 provides the context by...

The British National Health Service (NHS) has experienced various phases of reform and reorganisation during the last 15 years. During this time it has been suggested that the role of the patient is analogous to that of the consumer. Meanwhile there has been increasing application of the...

Examines the impact of genetic testing and therapy on health care in light of the development of the system in the USA since the turn of the twentieth century. Genetic testing and therapy have the potential to create a great advance in health care but also to become a business of multi‐billion...