Spring 2027

The Economics of Health Care

Analysis of the health care industry, covering markets for hospitals, physicians' care, health manpower, and the role of health insurance.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Korinna Hansen3.9/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Korinna Hansen

The class involved a large group project and lots of readings, with students expecting a lot of work overall. One reviewer described the grading as arbitrary, while another noted the course was very difficult and advised against taking it for an easy A.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Specify the types of economic decisions health care players make in different markets.

  • Apply micro economic models and tools to study economic decisions in the healthcare system and understand their implications.

  • Evaluate empirical evidence from health care literature that involves cost, access, and quality of care considerations for the different health care players.

  • Describe the basic institutional structure of the US healthcare market and how it compares to markets in other countries.

  • Identify types of data necessary for testing specific hypotheses involving health care player behavior.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2 UW Guide 3

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

ECON 301,ECON 311, or PUB AFFR 880

ECON/POPHLTH/PUBAFFR 548

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.97/5 from 243 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 4.4/5 raw quality · 3.7/5 difficulty · 14 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Korinna Hansen

Korinna Hansen was praised for providing timely, detailed feedback and being accessible outside of class. Students noted that her instruction was thorough and that she graded fairly based on effort, though some described her teaching style as old-fashioned.

The course required a large group project and extensive reading, with students finding the exams difficult and the grading arbitrary or harsh. One student reported the class was stressful, while Hansen offered help throughout the project.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.38 GPA, 59.4% A/AB (n=32 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.39 GPA, 58.1% A/AB (n=31 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.61 GPA, 74.2% A/AB (n=31 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

KORINNA HANSEN is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 420
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 300
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 300

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Korinna Hansen

Students described the course as extremely interesting and educational, noting that Korinna Hansen provided detailed, timely feedback and remained accessible outside of class. Many found the subject matter engaging and the instruction clear.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.38 GPA, 59.4% A/AB (n=32 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.39 GPA, 58.1% A/AB (n=31 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.61 GPA, 74.2% A/AB (n=31 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Korinna Hansen

The class involved a large group project and lots of readings, with students expecting a lot of work overall. One reviewer described the grading as arbitrary, while another noted the course was very difficult and advised against taking it for an easy A.

Past student reviews · Korinna Hansen

Hansen guided students through the group project but could be harsh in her criticism during the process. While supportive overall, some students found the exams almost impossible to do well on, making the class stressful.

Topics

  • Markets for hospitals and physicians' care
  • Markets for health manpower
  • The role of health insurance
  • Institutional structure of the US healthcare market and international comparisons

Skills

  • Specifying economic decisions made by health care players in various markets.
  • Applying microeconomic models and tools to analyze healthcare system decisions.
  • Describing and comparing the institutional structure of the US healthcare market with other countries.
  • Identifying data types needed to test hypotheses about health care player behavior.

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ECON/POPHLTH/PUBAFFR 548 · Spring 2027

The Economics of Health Care

Recorded 2026-10-29
ECON/POPHLTH/PUBAFFR 548 · Spring 2027

The Economics of Health Care

Recorded 2026-10-29
ECON/POPHLTH/PUBAFFR 548 · Spring 2027

The Economics of Health Care

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
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    "title": "The Economics of Health Care",
    "credits_min": 3,
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-29

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "3c8b8d0938645ad33e80274661623dd96f4b583ff15d30097ed4da6e97cf7f1d",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
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}