Health Economics: The Cheerful Face of the Dismal Science?

Abstract

Economics is usually a rather doom-laden subject, and in this respect is linked indirectly with medicine through the observation that the only two things in life that are certain are death and taxes. And if you wanted to take the gloomiest possible view of the subject matter of health economics, I guess you could say that that statement sums it up perfectly … it is all about death and taxes. But though death and taxes may be inescapable, they are, fortunately, not immutable, and if you wanted to take a more cheerful view of the subject matter of health economics you could say that it is all about postponing death and reducing taxes. Broadly speaking, this is the view I take, though I hope to show you that there is more to life than postponing death, and more to costs than shows up in taxes, so that too simple-minded a view will not in fact carry us very far in understanding what health economists are trying to do.