Uwe Reinhardt

Uwe Ernst Reinhardt (September 24, 1937 – November 14, 2017) was the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Economics at Princeton University and held various advisory roles in both the public and private sectors, the latter included several positions in the healthcare industry. Reinhardt was a prominent scholar in health care economics and a listened-to voice on health care and health policy in government including the United States Congress where he often testified in both the House and Senate, as well as the private sector where he was a sought-after speaker and author on subjects ranging from the war in Iraq to the future of health care in America.

Biography Reinhardt was born 1937 in Osnabrück, Germany, and later emigrated to Canada, where he received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from University of Saskatchewan. He was awarded the Canadian Governor General's Gold Medal for being the most distinguished graduate of the year. He later received a Ph.D. in economics from Yale University and the Space Shuttle. Reinhardt was married to Tsung-Mei Cheng, also known as May Reinhardt.

In July 2015, Reinhardt's Princeton 2013 micro-economic course syllabus and first lecture for a class titled "Introductory Korean Drama" received attention from several bloggers and caused a spate of Korean media inquiries to him in Princeton. By way of explanation, Reinhardt introduced the class by stating:

It was not clear whether Reinhardt actually intended to teach the course.

Research Reinhardt's research focused on hospital pricing, systems of health care around the world, Medicare reform, and health care spending. His work appeared in Health Affairs, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The British Medical Journal, and The European Heart Journal. His final published work was the book titled Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care (Princeton University Press 2019).

In one paper, Reinhardt discusses the obstacles to success of consumer-directed health care in light of the lack of transparency in hospital pricing. He suggests several reforms that could lead to better information on hospital pricing for consumer decision-making, including a national set of diagnosis-related group weights to which each hospital could then apply its own conversion factor.

Reinhardt's scholarship analyzed the U.S. health care industry in relation to systems around the world. He argued that higher U.S. health spending is a result of higher U.S. per capita gross domestic product (GDP) as well as intricate and disjointed payment systems. Reinhardt's work on foreign systems of health care includes a 2004 analysis of Switzerland that appeared in JAMA. In it, Reinhardt argued that there is little correlation between the prevalence of consumer choice and the high quality of Swiss health care.

Reinhardt's work on health care spending includes his argument that the aging of the U.S. population is not the primary cause of the growth in U.S. health care spending. At the institute, he served on a number of study panels, including the Committee on the Implications of For-Profit Medicine, the Committee on Technical Innovation in Medicine, the Committee on the Implications of a Physicians Surplus, and the Committee on the U.S. Physician Supply. In 1996, he was appointed to the Board of Health Care services of the institute.

From 1986 to 1995, Reinhardt served three consecutive three-year terms as a Commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission (PPRC), established in 1986 by the Congress to advise it on issues related to the payment of physicians. Reinhardt served as a Commissioner for the Kaiser Family Foundation Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Reinhardt was a member of numerous editorial boards, among them The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, The Journal of Health Economics, Health Affairs, and the Milbank Quarterly.

Reinhardt served as a trustee of Duke University and the Tekla Family of Funds. In 2018, Reinhardt was posthumously awarded the First Grade Medal for Professionalism in Health and Welfare by Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Reinhardt was also a long time advisor of the Science and Technology Advisory Board (STAG) of the Office of the Premier of Taiwan and advised Taiwan's premier on a wide-ranging set of issues relating to science and technology in Taiwan.

Views

Administration In the 2009 Frontline show "Sick Around America", Reinhardt criticized the United States for spending 24% of every health care dollar on administration, and pointed out that Canada spends less than half of the U.S. amount and Taiwan spends significantly less than Canada. Reinhardt faulted the seeming U.S. preference for an unwieldy "mishmash of private insurance plans" for the inefficiency. He said if the U.S. could spend half as much on administration, it would save more than enough money to cover all the uninsured.

Selected articles "Little hope for the uninsured." Denver Post, January 25, 2004; E4.