The book is intended for users of health care cost-effectiveness analysis--health care policy authorities, researchers, students, and others--who wish to know and understand the discipline's theoretical foundations. The decision rules by which public health care agencies can choose the most socially beneficial--here called absolutely cost-effective--treatments to provide to or insure for their patient communities are stated in the book. The rules are derived algebraically from standard utilitarian welfare premises and two different models of an agency's optimizing behavior. They are presented...