ABSTRACT
Medicine, as a profession, has traditionally resisted efforts to relate death and conditions of illness to economic factors. Perhaps there have been good reasons for such a professional stance, since physicians typically have had more than enough to do caring for the ill without becoming embroiled in economic issues with which they had little familiarity. The most commonly accepted measure of the value that society can place on the lives of its members requires that economists consider persons in their roles as producers. For a variety of reasons, economists long have neglected analyses of the health services industry. One of the major reasons has been the belief that the industry is organized largely around nonprofit institutions and, as a result, is not readily susceptible to economic analysis. The health care system is designed to provide many services for the “really sick” individual, but pays little attention to the basic health problems of society.
