ABSTRACT
There are, in my view, three central ideas that permeate most applications of economic theory to the health care field. The first is the focus on the individual. Although economic theory does recognize the concept of ‘social welfare,’ it is generally conceived to be based solely on some aggregation of individual utilities. Kenneth Arrow (1984), for example, has written that, ‘Society, after all, is just a convenient label for the totality of individuals…’ (80). This conception, although dominant, does not enjoy universal acceptance. Amartya Sen has coined this philosophy as ‘welfarism,’ which ‘is the view that the only things of intrinsic value for ethical calculation and evaluation of states of affairs are individual utilities’ (Sen 1987:40). He makes a number of counter arguments.1
