Rashi Fein is Professor of Medical Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School, and co-author of The Health Care Mess; How We Got Into It and What It Will Take To Get Out, from the Harvard University Press.

Fein joined Harvard in 1968 and became Emeritus in 1990. Prior to that he was a Senior Fellow in the Economics Study Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington (1963-68), a member of the Senior Staff of President Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors (1961-63), and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) (1952-61).  He served on the staff of President Truman’s Commission on the Health Needs of the Nation (1952).

Fein is a Charter Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a Founding Member of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

He is the author of numerous books and articles in the health field.  His first book was The Economics of Mental Illness, Basic Books (l958) and his two most recent volumes are Medical Care, Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy Harvard University Press (1986, 1989) and (with Julius Richmond MD) The Health Care Mess: How We Got Into It and What It Will Take To Get Out Harvard University Press (2005). His articles and book chapters include: “An Economic and Social Profile of the Negro American,” in The Negro American, Houghton Mifflin Company (1966); “On Measuring Economic Benefits of Health Programs,” in Medical History & Medical Care: A Symposium of Perspectives, Oxford University Press (1971); “Social and Economic Attitudes Shaping American Health Policy” in Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly Health and Society, (Summer 1980); “The HMO Revolution” in Dissent (spring and summer 1998).