Health Affairs, 22, no. 2 (2003): 16 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.22.2.16 © 2003 by Project HOPE	New Online   Pay Cuts For Medicare Docs   Access To Care Woes   Public Coverage More Efficient   Empowering Consumers

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Incentives

PROLOGUE

Incentives For Quality

PROLOGUE: Adam Smith’s idea of how the economy works is as simple as it is durable: The common economic good is advanced most efficiently not when individuals consciously attempt to advance it, but rather when individuals and institutions are allowed to seek their own best interests. Smith invoked the imagery of a so-called invisible hand to describe the mechanism, which figuratively coordinates the decentralized actions of many individuals to ends that are not part of their intentions. Generations of politicians with a distaste for central planning and a penchant for individual freedom have found Smith’s notion appealing, and the idea . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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