When South Africa implemented its non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) (its "lockdown") to stem the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, it was hailed as exemplary. By June 2020 however, the lockdown was in disarray: the number of confirmed infections continued to grow exponentially, placing the...

Much has been revealed recently regarding the relative unpreparedness of Public Health Authorities and their governments in many countries. We show that a lack of preparedness for the Covid-19 pandemic resulted from four major types of shortcomings. First, even when there were problems noted in...

In response to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), there have been substantial variations in policy response and performance for disease control and prevention within and across nations. It remains unclear to what extent these variations may be explained by bureaucrats'...

We are in the middle of the storm and this does not allow us to see clearly what is coming. This often generates partial analyses of the issues of the situation. Therefore, this manuscript attempts to generate an integral perspective on the issues of the crisis. This chapter proposes a...

This paper builds a government policy choice model in a general equilibrium setting in which households' health status responds to a stricter policy on the pandemic. By assuming an exogenous policy decision date, the model implies the government should maintain the current policy until the...

Penicillin and other antibiotics were the original wonder drugs and laid the foundation of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Human health significantly improved with the introduction of antibiotics. By 1967, the US Surgeon General declared victory over infectious diseases in the US. But pride...

Consumer-driven health care, based on health savings accounts and high deductible health insurance policies, seems to be the next big thing in U.S. health policy. Long supported by conservative and libertarian advocacy groups, it received a big-boost with the HSA tax subsidy provisions of the...

The idea of regulating private health plans so as to favor major players and the managed care is incompatible with the guidelines of the National Health System [Sistema Unico de Saude (SUS)] and for this reason we defend instead a regulatory action aiming to strengthen the public sphere. In...

This Article employs a behavioral economic analysis to understand why Medicaid has failed to improve the health outcomes of its beneficiaries. It begins with a formal economic model of health care consumption and then systematically incorporates a survey of psychosocial variables to formulate...