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Charles Phelps
University Professor; Professor of Political Science and of Economics; Provost Emeritus
Arts, Sciences, and Engineering
Department of Economics
Areas of expertise: Health economics and policy, the economics and governance of not-for-profit organizations, and the economics of higher education.
Press contact:
Susan Hagen
susan.hagen@rochester.edu
585.276.4061
Related Links:
More on Professor Phelps
In the News
RN Web
IOM committee mulls future direction
August 01, 2012
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Insurers say reform will flop without a mandate
March 19, 2012
WXXI
Health Care Reform: Some Questions Still Unanswered
August 23, 2010
Motley Fool
The Balancing Act: Health Care and the Economy
August 03, 2010
Biography
Phelps, University Professor, provost emeritus, and professor of political science and economics, is the author of Health Economics (4th edition, 2009), recognized as the "gold standard" among textbooks on the health care industry. A critic of the country's current delivery system, Phelps is nevertheless neither an advocate for nor an opponent of a single payer system or universal insurance. Instead, he says that with health care reform "the devil is in the details." Lower costs and improved care, Phelps argues, will required widespread understanding about which medical treatments work and which are wasteful; insuring the continued introduction of new medical technologies; and removing distortions, like tax-exempt employee health care premiums, that hide the real cost of medical procedures.