Microeconomics of Healthcare Policy: Why Simple Reforms Fail

Why do promising healthcare policies that look perfect on paper so often fail in the real world? Understanding the underlying microeconomic forces is the key to predicting these outcomes and designing truly effective public health solutions. This text-based course guides you through the microeconomic fundamentals of healthcare markets, equipping you to evaluate policy design, predict consumer and provider behavior, and analyze why simple fixes often fizzle out due to unintended economic incentives. What you'll learn: - Understand core microeconomic concepts like supply, demand, and price elasticity within healthcare markets. - Analyze classic market failures including asymmetric information, adverse selection, and moral hazard. - Evaluate the economic impact of insurance designs, subsidies, and government mandates. - Apply modern behavioral economics and nudge theory to predict patient and provider decision-making. - Analyze real-world policy case studies to identify the economic factors that lead to reform failures. You will begin with foundational definitions and basic economic models of healthcare before moving into the complexities of insurance markets, provider incentives, and modern policy evaluation. This course is designed for beginners interested in public policy, economics, or healthcare administration, with no prior economic training required. Start reading today to build a analytical, economics-driven framework for understanding healthcare policy.