PHPB 8250 - Health Economics and Policy

3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: PHPB 7160.
Description
The course will provide an introduction to health care finance with a particular emphasis on the various meanings of ‘cost’ and public health issues. Students will be presented with the foundations of public and private health care financing, program operations and parameters with respect to coverage and payment, and the role the states play in federally supported programs. The course will familiarize students with federal, state, and local funding mechanisms and outline the tools used to evaluate the impact of insurance programs on the health care delivery system. The problems of the uninsured, health care coverage and access, scarce health care resource allocation, and cultural challenges will be discussed, with an emphasis on learning how or if public and private funding and insurance programs can successfully address such problems.