Includes bibliographical references and index.

Victor Fuchs offers a selection of his public lectures, articles, papers, and op-eds during the past 50 years. Also included are forewords by Sir Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, and Victor Dzau, MD, president of the National Academy of Medicine. Organized in eight parts, it begins with an introduction to the field of health economics and ends with tributes to the founders and leaders of the field. In between, Fuchs discusses the determinants of health, the cost of medical care, international comparisons, health insurance, demography and aging, and health policy and health care reform. A special introduction precedes each Part. This book represents what Fuchs calls the economic perspective applied to health and medical care, a perspective of which Angus Deaton says, ""Fuchs has long been the master.""