Provides an international, unifying perspective, based on the 'public choice' tradition, to explain how patient-citizens interact with their country's political institutions to determine health policies and outcomes. This volume will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students studying health economics, health policy and public policy.

Originally published in 1984, this book attempted to fill a gap by providing a broad-ranging structural analysis of the health care sector and the political and economic forces which influence its shape and contents, both in the western world and developing countries. The contributors examine the relationships of capitalism to health care, in terms of its influence on the physical environment, the incidence of social diseases and the prevailing (20th Century) view of what constitutes health itself; and in terms of the consequences of the new medical industrial complex it has created, such as the declining provision of health care for the poor and disadvantaged and the growing power of the pharmaceutical industry.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and critical overview of the gamut of contemporary issues around health and healthcare from a political economy perspective. Its contributions present a unique challenge to prevailing economic accounts of health and healthcare, which narrowly focus on individual behaviour and market processes. Instead, the capacity of the human body to reach its full potential and the ability of society to prevent disease and cure illness are demonstrated to be shaped by a broader array of political economic processes. The material conditions in which societies produce, distribute, exchange, consume, and reproduce – and the operation of power relations therein – influence all elements of human health: from food consumption and workplace safety, to inequality, healthcare and housing, and even the biophysical conditions in which humans live. This volume explores these concerns across five sections. First, it introduces and critically engages with a variety of established and cutting-edge theoretical perspectives in political economy to conceptualise health and healthcare – from neoclassical and behavioural economics, to Marxist and feminist approaches. The next two sections extend these insights to evaluate the neoliberalisation of health and healthcare over the past 40 years, highlighting their individualisation and commodification by the capitalist state and powerful corporations. The fourth section examines the diverse manifestation of these dynamics across a range of geographical contexts. The volume concludes with a section devoted to outlining more progressive health and healthcare arrangements, which transcend the limitations of both neoliberalism and capitalism. This volume will be an indispensable reference work for students and scholars of political economy, health policy and politics, health economics, health geography, the sociology of health, and other health-related disciplines. Chapters 1 & 8 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [CC BY NC ND] 4.0 license.

The authors use a political economy perspective to explain why the effects of public medical care policy in America are often at odds with widely accepted notions of the public interest. Medical inflation, national heath insurance, reduction of hospital capacity, and regulation of long term care, are among the key issues discussed. 'An interesting insight into health care policy in the USA is provided by this book which systematically analyses medical care policy formation and implementation in that country...Very relevant to today's debate in the United Kingdom.' -- Journal of the Institute of Health Education, Vol 21 No 1 'In adopting a positive approach to health policy, this book...succeeds in deliverin

Some goods and services are normally left to the market mechanism. Health care is often described as an exception to the rule. Society wants care to be allocated equitably; it wants the financial burden to be kept within bounds; it wants treatments to be both medically effective and economically efficient. These shared concerns lead to a demand for State intervention which this book seeks impartially to appraise and evaluate.

a Should be of interest to everyone working for a just and caring health system anywhere.a Barbara Ehrenreich"

A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as "health policyand those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.