Victor R. Fuchs, the so-called dean of American health care economists, died on Sept. 16 at his home on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. He was 99.

Dr. Fuchs was best known for a slim book published in 1975 with the attention-grabbing title, Who Shall Live? Health Economics and Social Choice. He was among the first to articulate why the United States was in the midst of rapidly rising health care costs, while costs in other countries stayed manageable. The book has become required reading among physicians, health economists, and anyone interested in the issue of American health care, and it has never been out of print.

Dr. Fuchs showed that the real problem facing the country was not health care coverage but health care costs; America, he wrote, was spending more and more without achieving better health outcomes.

He wrote more than 200 research papers and 16 more books. He retired in 1995 but continued to write. He finished his latest not long before his death. It is scheduled for publication next month.