- Uwe Reinhardt, 80, Dies; a Listened-to Voice on Health Care Policy New York Times by Sam Roberts — Uwe Reinhardt, an economist whose keen, caustic and unconventional insights cast him as what colleagues called a national conscience in policy debates about health care, died on Monday in Princeton, N.J. He was 80. The cause was sepsis, his wife, Tsung-Mei Cheng, said. He had taught in the economics department at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University since 1968. Professor Reinhardt helped shape health care deliberations for decades as a prolific contributor to numerous publications, an adviser to White House and congressional policymakers, a member of federal and professional commissions and a consultant and board member, paid and unpaid, for private industry.