the american economic review
uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care
introduction : scope and method
this paper is an exploratory and tentative study of the specific differentia of medical care as the object of normative economics. it is contended here, on the basis of comparison of obvious characteristics of the medical-care industry with the norms of welfare economics , that the special economic problems of medical care can be explained as adaptations to the existence of uncertainty in the incidence of disease and in the efficacy of treatment