Thomas Rice

Dr. Thomas Rice is Distinguished Professor of the Department of Health Policy and Management. He served as Vice Chancellor, Academic Personnel for the UCLA campus from 2006-11. He teaches courses in international health care systems, health economics, and current issues in health policy.

Dr. Rice received his Ph.D. in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He has conducted research projects and published in a number of areas, including: comparative health systems, behavioral economics, physicians' economic behavior; health insurance for seniors; health care cost containment; and the role of competition in health care reform. Dr. Rice has testified before the U.S. Congress numerous times on various health policy issues. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Science, in 2006. In 1998, he received the Article-of-the-Year Award from the Association for Health Services Research. Dr. Rice served as Editor of the journal, Medical Care Research and Review from 1994-2000. His book, Health Insurance Systems: An International Comparison, was published in 2021. The fifth edition of his book, The Economics of Health Reconsidered, was published in 2023. The second edition  of his book: United States of America: Health Systems Review, was published in 2020.

Areas of Interest

• Health Economics
• Health Care Systems
• Competition and Regulation
• Health Insurance

Selected Publications

Books

• Rice, Thomas. Health Insurance Systems: An International Comparison (Cambridge, MA, Academic Press, 2021).
• Rice, Thomas, and Lynn Unruh.  The Economics of Health Reconsidered, 5th edition (Chicago, Health Administration Press, 2023). 
• Rice, Thomas, Pauline Rosenau, Lynn J. Unruh, and Andrew J. Barnes.  United States of America:  Health Systems Review, 2nd edition.  (Copenhagen, Denmark:  World Health Organization, 2020).
• Andersen, Ronald M., Thomas H. Rice, and Gerald F. Kominski, eds.  Changing the U.S. Health Care System:  Key Issues in Health Services, Policy, and Management.  3rd edition. (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2007). 

Selected Journal Articles 

• Rice, Thomas.  “Building A Better Health Insurance System:  How The U.S. Can Benefit From The Experiences Of Other Countries.”  Health Management Policy and Innovation 6(2), December 2021.
• Rice, Thomas, Andrew J. Barnes, Pauline Rosenau, Lynn Y. Unruh, and Ewout van Ginneken.  “Health Reforms in the United States: An Outlook After Biden's first 100 days.” Health Policy 125(10), October 2021: 1277-1284.
• Rice, Thomas.  “Uwe Reinhardt on Being a Good Economist.”  Health Services Research 55, December 2020: 907-910.
• Rice, Thomas, Wilm Quentin, Anders Anell, Andrew J. Barnes, Pauline Rosenau, Lynn Y. Unruh, and Ewout van Ginneken.  “Revisiting Out-of-Pocket Requirements: Trends in Spending, Financial Access Barriers, and Policy in Ten High-Income Countries.”  BMC Health Services Research 18:271, 2018.
• Van Ginneken, Ewout, and Thomas Rice.  “Enforcing Enrollment in Health Insurance Exchanges: Evidence from the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany.”  Medical Care Research and Review 72(4), August 2015: 496-509.
• Rice, Thomas, Lynn Y. Unruh, Pauline Rosenau, Andrew J. Barnes, Richard B. Saltman and Ewout van Ginneken.  “Challenges Facing the United States of America in Implementing Universal Coverage.   Bulletin of the World Health Organization ;2:894–902, December 2014. 
• Rice, Thomas.  “The Behavioral Economics of Health and Health Care.”  Annual Review of Public Health 34, 2013, pp. 431-447. 
• Vladeck, Bruce C., and Thomas Rice.  "Market Failure and the Failure of Discourse:  Facing Up to the Power of Sellers."  Health Affairs 28(5), September/October 2009, pp. 1305-1315.
• Hanoch, Yaniv, Thomas Rice, Janet Cummings, and Stacey Wood.  “How Much Choice is Too Much?:  The Case of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.”  Health Services Research 44(4), August 2009, pp. 1157-1168.
• Hanoch, Yaniv., and Thomas Rice, “Can Limiting Choice Increase Social Welfare?:  The Elderly and Health Insurance.  Milbank Quarterly 84(1), April 2006, pp. 37-73.