At its most basic level, health care is a handful of financial transactions, in which patients are obtaining insurance, physicians and hospitals provide services, pharmacies provide medications, and insurance companies pay for those goods and services. So to understand health economics, you must follow the money. When tracing the flow of funds through the health care system, it 's important to be aware that the money trail is constantly shifting, changing direction and size. Most important, the goal is to improve the delivery of health services, fund innovative and cost-effective medical procedures, cut the costs of health insurance, improve the nation 's health through prevention and better nutrition, and eliminate graft and corruption in the health care industry while raising it to a level that 's steady with the rest of the…