Richard Bailey

Richard Bailey, Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Administration, based in the School of Public Health, passed away on June 28, 2022. Professor Bailey was a leading scholar of health economics and served as chair of the department in the late 1970s.

Professor Bailey was born in 1932 in Dundee, New York, in the Finger Lakes region. He received his B.A. in Business Administration from Albany State Teachers College (now SUNY Albany) and then became an officer in the United States Navy, serving primarily in Japan. After leaving the Navy, Bailey earned his Doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Indiana at Bloomington. After completing his doctorate, Bailey was appointed to the Berkeley faculty, but he delayed his appointment by several years to serve in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. His government service complete, Professor Bailey joined the Berkeley faculty, and eventually the School of Public Health Administration, as it was then known.

Professor Bailey’s on-the-ground academic research in the 1960s and 1970s on the effectiveness of different healthcare settings, which contended that the most efficient mode of practice was in small, specialized offices, was extremely influential. Among his most famous works was the article “Economics of Scale in Medical Practice,” a chapter in the book, Empirical Studies in Health Economics. Later, Professor Bailey’s focus on was the relationship between pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and laboratories, which he viewed as creating a series of misaligned incentives to the detriment of patients and the healthcare system. In this vein, Prof. Bailey directed two projects, one on “The Economics of the Clinical Laboratory Industry,” and one on “Policy Alternatives in Clinical Laboratory Testing.” Professor Bailey was also associated with his Berkeley colleague, Professor Henrik Blum, with whom he collaborated on several projects related to delivery of healthcare to the poor. Later in his career, Bailey served as an expert witness in litigation involving negligence, medical malpractice, and racial discrimination.

Beyond the classroom, Professor Bailey was an avid outdoorsman who loved to hunt, fish, and camp throughout the American west, often traveling in his 1971 VW bus.