Fuchs, Victor R.

Victor R. Fuchs is a leading health economist who is perhaps best known for his work Who Shall Live? Health, Economics, and Social Choice, which provides healthcare professionals and policymakers with the tools to understand the economic and policy problems in healthcare that have emerged in recent decades. Fuchs is the Henry J. Kaiser, Jr., Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a core faculty member in the Center for Health Policy/Primary Care and [Page 428]Outcomes Research at Stanford. Fuchs is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Fuchs received his bachelor of science degree in business administration from New York University and a master's and a doctoral degree in economics from Columbia University. Fuchs began his professional career as a faculty member at Columbia University and New York University. He later was a program associate for the Ford Foundation Program in Economic Development and Administration, scholar-in-residence at the Rockefeller Foundation in Lake Como, Italy, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California. In 1968, Fuchs joined the faculty at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine as professor of community medicine and the City University of New York Graduate Center as professor of economics and served as vice president of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). In 1974, he accepted a position at Stanford University, where he continues to teach and conduct research.

Fuchs's work involves applying economic analysis to solve social problems of national concern, with an emphasis on health and medical care. He has been particularly interested in the influence of financial incentives on physician behavior and its relation to healthcare expenditures. He has published extensively on topics such as the cost of medical care and the determinants of health, with particular focus on the role of socioeconomic factors. His scholarly work has resulted in 15 books and more than 180 articles and papers.

Fuchs's contributions have been recognized through many awards and honors, including the John R. Commons Award from the Omicron Delta Epsilon, the Emily Mumford Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Social Science in Medicine from Columbia University, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Association for Health Services Research, the Baxter Foundation Health Services Research Prize, and the Madden Distinguished Alumni Award from New York University. He is also a past president and distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association and holds elected memberships or fellowships in the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM).

His current research examines the attitudes and beliefs in public support for national health insurance. He is developing a proposal for a universal healthcare voucher system in which all individuals would receive a government voucher that would guarantee coverage in a private health plan with standardized benefits.