Assignment

Santerre (Textbook) Chapter 1 - Problem 2 pg. 19. Congratulations! Upon graduating you accept a well-deserved job with XER Consulting. Your first job involves a consulting gig with a state subcommittee on health care issues. The senate health care subcommittee is considering the expansion of two existing public health programs. One program concerns additional funding for nursing homes around the state. The other program involves additional funding for community health centers around the state. In both cases the funding is supposed to be used to attract more nurses for expansion purposes. Your job involves the following three tasks:

• Draw and use a production possibilities curve to graphically show and verbally explain to the subcommittee members the opportunity cost at a point in time of expanding any one of the programs, assuming that both of them are initially operating efficiently. Be sure to correctly label the axes and all points. Refer to the points on the graph in your explanation.

• Use the production possibilities curve to graphically show and verbally explain how one or both programs could be expanded at a lower opportunity cost if some inefficiency or slack initially exists in the overall public health system. Refer to various points on the graph in your explanation.

• Verbally explain to the subcommittee members what factors might cause the public health care system to grow.