Health economics

As was discussed during our March 30, 2020 class meeting, you are living in the midst of a once- in –a-lifetime experience, the COVID-19 pandemic. Normally I give my students wide latitude in selecting term paper topics, but this unique situation provides an opportunity unlike others. The highly contagious, rapidly spreading virus is crippling economic and social activity around the world while straining finite supplies of health care facilities, supplies, equipment and beds. There is now a rich set of published and broadcast information which you can tap into for your term papers.

Accordingly, I’m asking that you select for your term papers a specific and focused health economics topic and speak to it as it is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I’ve come up with a list of such topics for your consideration as follows.

1. How the spread of infectious disease in a country may be impacted by the degree to which that country’s health care delivery system is run by the government vs. private sector. Compare and contrast two different countries using information on their health care delivery system (Commonwealth Fund) and capacity to treat COVID-19 patients. The US should be one of the two countries, with the other coming from a list that would include Italy, Great Britain, Canada, Germany, France and South Korea.

2. Health care industry supply chain/inventory preparedness for an infectious disease outbreak. There are several potential areas to explore here, including medical technology, personal protection equipment/supplies, medications, hospital beds and/or skilled medical professionals. Start with a discussion of how much capacity is needed to maintain normal “production” of health care, and the lead time needed to meet extraordinary demands from an unexpected infectious disease outbreak. A particularly interesting one involves COVID-19 testing materials and supplies, where demand went from zero to millions of units within a very short time period. Think about who should bear the costs of producing/maintaining surplus pandemic capacity as well.

3. Impact of the federal government regulatory approval process on the development of COVID-19 treatments (drugs). The FDA process for reviewing and approving new drugs is lengthy and involves extensive research to validate the safety and effectiveness of the drug prior to it being approved. How does this affect possible treatments to mitigate the medical impact of COVID-19 during this pandemic?

4. Managing the COVID-19 pandemic as an infectious disease externality. There are various tools available to help mitigate the impact of the externality and/or match up the costs and benefits to those whose actions facilitate the spread of the virus. Identify how such approaches are being used here and challenges/limitations they face in terms of impact on the COVID-19 pandemic.

I’m open to other interesting ways to roll in the COVID-19 experience into health economics topics. My only caveat is to first check out whether there are at least three good sources of information and reporting to work off of in writing your term paper with bibliography. Proper citation of sources is mandatory here!