Both receive richly-deserved awards at ASHEcon this week–the major organization of health economists.
Chandra receives the 2012 ASHEcon Medal Award. He is a really creative member of the succeeding generation. He has done beautiful and important work on racial disparities in health outcomes. His life is now complete, knowing that he changed my own thinking in this area. Too many minority patients–and many others–experience avoidably bad outcomes because they receive care in under-funded or low-quality facilities that provide measurably poorer treatment. As Chandra puts it: “Forty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, minority health care is de facto separate and unequal.”
Mark Pauly, arguably the dean of American health economists, receives the Victor Fuchs lifetime achievement award. Like so many others, I’ve learned a lot from his work–though given my politics, Mark might sometimes wish I had learned more.
