Reader Hume asked:

What is (are) the definitive free market health care book(s)? Thanks for any recommendations.

“Definitive” is tough. It’s hard to be definitive in one book. And the ones I recommend are not entirely pro-free market. But these are the four that I like:

Roger Feldman, ed., American Health Care: Government, Market Processes, and the Public Interest. Unfortunately, I lost both of my copies in my February 2007 fire. 🙁

David Dranove, The Economic Evolution of American Health Care, which I reviewed in the Wall Street Journal on January 8, 2001. It’s an important look at the managed care revolution. He finds that managed care was an untold, until he wrote his book, success story. I like it much better than his more-recent Code Red, which I reviewed here [.pdf].

John L. Goodman and Gerald L. Musgrave, Patient Power. Dated in some ways but still good in others. Get the full version, not the abridged.

Arnold Kling, Crisis of Abundance.

Also, I recommend anything on health care that Ben Zycher writes. In this one on single-payer and the uninsured, he knocks it out of the park.