Rashi Fein

A decent medical-care system that helps all the people cannot be built without the language of equity and care. If this language is permitted to die and is completely replaced by the language of efficiency and cost control, all of us — including physicians — will lose something precious.

He was the brother of Leonard J. Fein, also known as Leibel Fein, an American activist and writer, who had taught political science at MIT, became Deputy Director of the Harvard–MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies, and specialized in Jewish social themes.

Among colleagues, Fein was admired for his wry, often-humorous anecdotes drawn from Jewish culture and over 50 years of experience in the policy arena, which he brought together in his final book, Learning Lessons: Medicine, Economics, and Public Policy (Transaction Publishers, 2010).

He had authored nine books, the most recent of which was Lessons Learned: Medicine, Economics and Public Policy, published in November 2009.

He served as chair of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Scholars in Health Policy Research Program from 1994 to 2002 and was its Chair Emeritus until his death. His work included benefit-cost analysis, health care financing, health care workforce policy, cost containment, the financing of medical education, and health care reform. His first book was Economics of Mental Illness (1958). His last (2010) book, Lessons Learned: Medicine, Economics and Public Policy, was built on the various lessons and stories that, as Chair of the NAC, he had presented over the years at the Scholars' Annual Meeting in Aspen.

His 1982 paper "What Is Wrong with the Language of Medicine?" in the New England Journal of Medicine began:

He joined the Harvard faculty of the school of medicine and the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1968. He also served as senior fellow in the economics program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

He was a member of the Truman Commission on the Health Care Needs of the Nation, which as early as 1952 had supported national health insurance and regionalization of health care delivery. Later, he served on President Kennedy's Council of Economic Advisors as a senior staff member. There, he helped to develop the initial legislation for Medicare, a healthcare model he continued to advocate throughout his life. Professor Fein had also served on the Board of the Committee for National Health Insurance under the leadership of former UAW President Doug Fraser and under Walter Reuther on a Board investigating malnutrition in the United States. He was a charter member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), had received numerous honors for service in medical economcis, and sat on boards of a number of not-for-profit health care institutions.

Rashi Fein, Litt. D. , Ph. D. , (1926-2014), a famed health economist termed 'a father of Medicare', was Professor of Economics of Medicine, Emeritus, in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the author of "Medical Care, Medical Costs: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy". Rashi Fein began his service to the United States during World War II, in the US Navy. He spent much of his time after that thinking and writing about health care reform.