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Health Care Financing and Insurance
by Francesco PaolucciAs a contribution to the search for suitable and sustainable solutions to finance rising medical care expenditures, the book proposes a typology of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, based on the dimensions of basic vs. supplementary services and mandatory vs. voluntary coverage, to analyse the design and the complex interactions between various financing and insurance arrangements in several OECD countries. This study provides a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the financial and organisational structures of different countries' healthcare financing and insurance schemes. Its main contributions are the development of a novel and rigorous theoretical framework analysing the economic rationales for the optimal design of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, and an empirical and institutional analysis investigating the consequences for efficiency and affordability of the complex interactions between basic and supplementary sources of financing.
Health Care In The People's Republic Of China: Moving Toward Modernization
by Marilynn M RosenthalThe Chinese health care system is deeply rooted in a traditional, agricultural way of life, but since the late 1970s it has been increasingly influenced by the dynamics of a modernizing society. Dr. Rosenthal, using data collected through interviews, small-scale surveys, and the Chinese press, examines how Chinese medicine is being transformed. She
Health Care Policy Reform in America: Innovations from the States
by Howard M. LeichterThis work tracks the role of the states in US health care policy reform. It reviews the challenges faced by the states in dealing with rising costs and looks at their policy competence and role in managed care, whilst focusing on the outcomes of policy reform in states such as Hawaii and Oregon.
Health Care Policy and Opinion in the United States and Canada (Routledge Studies in Governance and Public Policy)
by Antonia Maioni Richard Nadeau Éric Bélanger François Pétry Stuart N SorokaHeated debate surrounds the topic of health care in both the US and in Canada. In each country, these debates are based in some measure on perceptions about health care in their neighboring country. The perceptions held by Canadians about the US health care system, or those held by Americans about Canada, end up having significant impact on health policy makers in both countries. Health Care Policy and Opinion in the United States and Canada examines these perceptions and their effects using an extensive cross-national survey made up of two public opinion polls of over 3,500 respondents from the US and Canada. The book first develops a rigorous and detailed explanation of the factors that contribute to levels of satisfaction among Americans and Canadians with respect to their health care systems. It then attempts to study the perceptions of Canadians vis-à-vis the US health care system as well as the perception of Americans toward Canada’s health care system. The authors examine how these perceptions impact health policy makers, and show how the survey results indicate remarkable similarities in the opinions expressed by Americans and Canadians toward the problems in the health care system, heralding perhaps a measure of convergence in the future. The authors present how perceptions on health care indicate elements of convergence or divergence between the views of Canadians and Americans, and discuss how these citizen opinions should inform health care policy change in both countries in the near future. This book should generate interest in scholars of health care, public opinion, and comparative studies of social policies and public opinion.
Health Care Policy in an Age of New Technologies
by Mark E Rushefsky Kant PatelRevolutionary advances in biomedical research and information systems technology pose new and difficult issues for American health care policy, especially in the context of managed care. Health Care Policy in a New Millennium takes on this challenging array of issues where the dignity of individual life meets the imperatives of national-level health-care systems - patients' rights, rationing of care, organ transplants, genetic research, confidentiality of medical records, the right to die, and other ethical dilemmas. The book places these critical questions about the quality of life in our society in their political, legal, social, economic, and ethical contexts.
Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know
by Lawrence R. Jacobs Theda SkocpolThe Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama in March 2010 is a landmark in U. S. social legislation, and the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding the Act has ensured that it will remain the law of the land. The new law extends health insurance to nearly all Americans, fulfilling a century-long quest and bringing the United States to parity with other industrial nations. Affordable Care aims to control rapidly rising health care costs and promises to make the United States more equal, reversing four decades of rising disparities between the very rich and everyone else. Millions of people of modest means will gain new benefits and protections from insurance company abuses - and the tab will be paid by privileged corporations and the very rich. How did such a bold reform effort pass in a polity wracked by partisan divisions and intense lobbying by special interests? What does Affordable Care mean-and what comes next? In this updated edition of Health Care Reform and American Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Lawrence R. Jacobs and Theda Skocpol-two of the nation's leading experts on politics and health care policy-provide a concise and accessible overview. They explain the political battles of 2009 and 2010, highlighting White House strategies, the deals Democrats cut with interest groups, and the impact of agitation by Tea Partiers and progressives. Jacobs and Skocpol spell out what the new law can do for everyday Americans, what it will cost, and who will pay. In a new section, they also analyze the impact the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the law. Above all, they explain what comes next, as critical yet often behind-the-scenes battles rage over implementing reform nationally and in the fifty states. Affordable Care still faces challenges at the state level despite the Court ruling. But, like Social Security and Medicare, it could also gain strength and popularity as the majority of Americans learn what it can do for them. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
Health Care Revolt: How to Organize, Build a Health Care System, and Resuscitate Democracy—All at the Same Time
by Bernard Lown Michael Fine Ariel Lown LewitonToday's deliberations about a revamped health care system are stuck. We need a fresh analysis and a new vision. Health Care Revolt sets out to provide just that and at a most propitious time in U.S. history. Dr. Michael Fine's manifesto frames the questions more expansively than others before him and offers an impassioned road map for a nation confused about which health care direction to travel. The crux of Dr. Fine's argument is that the U.S. does not have a health system. Rather we have put our faith in a so-called marketplace in which the few profit from the public's ill-health. This ailing market has accelerated the erosion of American democracy by contributing to economic polarization. Health Care Revolt looks around the world for examples of health care systems that are effective and affordable, pictures such a system for the U.S., and creates a practical playbook for a political revolution in health care that will allow the nation to protect health while strengthening democracy. Dr. Fine's voice is likely to command attention. He writes with the experience of a clinician, State public health commissioner, scholar, and community organizer. He illustrates his points with personal stories and acute analysis, conveying medicalese in ways that readers will find comprehensible.
Health Care Systems in Liberal Democracies
by Ann WallFirst published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Health Care Turning Point: Why Single Payer Won't Work (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Roger M. BattistellaAn expert debunks popular misconceptions about health policy, including the merits of single-payer plans, and offers an alternative.In the battle over health care reform we can try to fashion new policies based on old ideas—or we can acknowledge today's demographic and economic realities. In Health Care Turning Point, health policy expert Roger Battistella argues that the conventional wisdom that dominates health policy debates is out of date. Battistella takes on popular misconceptions about the advantages of single-payer plans, the role of the market, and other health policy issues and outlines a pragmatic new approach.Few would disagree that the current system is broken. But, Battistella asserts provocatively, a government takeover of health insurance patterned after Medicare and Medicaid won't work either. Battistella argues that contrary to popular belief, single-payer coverage will not lower health spending but would encourage overconsumption and drive costs up. If consumers were responsible for buying their own health insurance (as they are for buying their own car and home insurance), he argues, they'd look for value and demand greater price and quality transparency from providers.The economic shibboleth that the principles of market competition don't apply to health care is nonsense, Battistella says. We won't achieve real health care reform until policy makers adjust to this reality and adopt a more pragmatic view.
Health Care and Popular Medicine in Nineteenth Century England: Essays in the Social History of Medicine (Routledge Revivals)
by John Woodward David RichardsOriginally published in 1977, this book presents a selection of work by historians and sociologists on medicine and society in the 19th century. It concentrates on practitioners and patients, quackery and folk medicine, as elements in the social, cultural, political and economic structure of the community at large. The relevance of social history in medicine to the analysis of the role of medicine in society is discussed as well as the knowledge of sex and sexuality and the professionalisation of medicine.
Health Care and Traditional Medicine in China 1800-1982
by S. M. Hillier Tony JewellFirst published in 1983.Beginning with the period of the early expansion of Western missionary medicine, this account covers the chaotic years of Nationalist rule to the foundations of the People's Republic in 1949. It trances the major influences on health care since then and describes the conflicts of State bureaucracy, Party and medical profession in their attempts to match political objectives in health care to resources available. An outline of the theory of Chinese traditional medicine, together with detailed accounts of acupuncture and plant drugs are also discussed, as are specific features of the health care system, such as population control, medical education, nutrition and psychiatry.
Health Care as a Right of Citizenship: The Continuing Evolution of Reform
by Gunnar AlmgrenWhile the Obama Administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded health care coverage for millions of Americans, it has fallen short in offering universal health care to all. In Health Care as a Right of Citizenship, Gunnar Almgren argues that the ACA’s primary significance is not in its expansion of health care entitlements but in its affirming by an act of Congress the idea that comprehensive health care must be available to all as a right of citizenship. The mainstream American public now views access to affordable health care to all citizens as a crucial function of just and effective governance-and any proposed alternative to the ACA must be reconciled with that expectation. This ambitious book examines how the American health care system must be further reformed to bring it closer in line with the ideals of a modern democracy. It suggests the next, natural step in the realization of health and well being as a fundamental human right.Based on a close analysis of the writings of sociologist TH Marshall and philosopher John Rawls, this book examines the theoretical foundations for health care as a social right of citizenship. Almgren then translates these theoretical principles into core health care policy aims. Throughout, he argues that the ACA is but an evolutionary step toward a more radical and fundamental health care reform. Almgren suggests how such a restructured health care system might operate, with specific proposals for its financing and delivery systems. He also explores the special issues and considerations that all nations must grapple with as they seek to provide a sustainable social right to health care.Health Care as a Right of Citizenship will stimulate and challenge readers who take an interest in America’s health care policy, particularly those who wish for a health care system that is both financially sustainable and capable of making healthcare accessible, adequate, and affordable to all Americans, irrespective of their societal position and individual health needs.
Health Care as a Right of Citizenship: The Continuing Evolution of Reform
by Gunnar AlmgrenWhile the Obama administration's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded health care coverage for millions of Americans, it has fallen short in offering universal health care to all. In Health Care as a Right of Citizenship, Gunnar Almgren argues that the ACA's primary significance is not in its expansion of health care entitlements but in its affirming by an act of Congress the idea that comprehensive health care must be available to all as a right of citizenship. The mainstream American public now views access to affordable health care to all citizens as a crucial function of just and effective governance—and any proposed alternative to the ACA must be reconciled with that expectation. This ambitious book examines how the American health care system must be further reformed to bring it closer in line with the ideals of a modern democracy, as well as how the ACA may change in the coming years. It suggests the next, natural step in the realization of health and well being as a fundamental human right.Based on a close analysis of the writings of sociologist TH Marshall and philosopher John Rawls, this book examines the theoretical foundations for health care as a social right of citizenship. Almgren then translates these theoretical principles into core health care policy aims. Throughout, he argues that the ACA is but an evolutionary step toward a more radical and fundamental health care reform. Almgren suggests how such a restructured health care system might operate, with specific proposals for its financing and delivery systems. He also explores the special issues and considerations that all nations must grapple with as they seek to provide a sustainable social right to health care. Health Care as a Right of Citizenship will stimulate and challenge readers who take an interest in America's health care policy, particularly those who wish for a health care system that is both financially sustainable and capable of making healthcare accessible, adequate, and affordable to all Americans, irrespective of their societal position and individual health needs.
Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930
by Beatrix HoffmanIn Health Care for Some, Beatrix Hoffman offers an engaging and in-depth look at America’s long tradition of unequal access to health care. She argues that two main features have characterized the US health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly American approach to the rationing of care. Health Care for Some shows that the haphazard way the US system allocates medical services—using income, race, region, insurance coverage, and many other factors—is a disorganized, illogical, and powerful form of rationing. And unlike rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down, rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs, resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world.While most histories of US health care emphasize failed policy reforms, Health Care for Some looks at the system from the ground up in order to examine how rationing is experienced by ordinary Americans and how experiences of rationing have led to claims for a right to health care. By taking this approach, Hoffman puts a much-needed human face on a topic that is too often dominated by talking heads.
Health Care in America: Separate and Unequal
by Mark E Rushefsky Kant PatelThe American health care system is a unique mix of public and private programs that critics argue has produced a two-tier system - one for the rich and the other for the poor - that delivers dramatically unequal care and leaves millions of Americans seriously underinsured or with no coverage at all. This book examines the root causes of the inequalities of the American health care system and discusses various policy alternatives. It systematically documents the demands on and the performance of our health care system for different population groups as defined on the basis of gender (women), age (children), race and ethnicity (African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans), and residence in high poverty areas (rural and inner city locales).For each population, the book documents: historical and demographic profile, data on health status, aspects of inequality including access; quality of care; and endemic, cultural, and lifestyle issues affecting health; policies, laws, and programs relevant to health care; and, indicators of improvement or negative trends.
Health Care in Canada
by Katherine FierlbeckHealth Care in Canada examines the challenges faced by the Canadian health care system, a subject of much public debate. In this book Katherine Fierlbeck provides an in-depth discussion of how health care decisions are shaped by politics and why there is so much disagreement over how to fix the system.Many Canadians point to health care as a source of national pride; others are highly critical of the system's shortcomings and call for major reform. Yet meaningful debate cannot occur without an understanding of how the system actually operates. In this overview, Fierlbeck outlines the basic framework of the health care system with reference to specific areas such as administration and governance, public health, human resources, drugs and drug policy, and mental health. She also discusses alternative models in other countries such as Britain, the United States, and France. As health care becomes increasingly complex, it is crucial that Canadians have a solid grasp of the main issues within both the policy and political environments. With its balanced and accessible assessment of the main political and theoretical debates, Health Care in Canada is an essential guide for anyone with a stake in Canada's health system.
Health Care in Contexts of Risk, Uncertainty, and Hybridity (Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics)
by Daniel Messelken David WinklerThis book sheds light on various ethical challenges military and humanitarian health care personnel (HCP) face while working in adverse conditions. Contexts of armed conflict, hybrid wars or other forms of violence short of war, as well as natural disasters, all have in common that ordinary circumstances can no longer be taken for granted. Hence, the provision of health care has to adapt, for example, to a different level of risk, to scarce resources, or uncommon approaches due to external incentives or requirements. This affects the practice of health care as well as its ethics. This book offers a panoramic overview on various challenges healthcare faces in extraordinary situations and provides new insights from practitioners’ as well as from academic scholars’ perspectives.
Health Care in Malaysia: The Dynamics of Provision, Financing and Access (Routledge Malaysian Studies Series #Vol. 4)
by Chee Heng Leng Simon BarracloughThe health care system in Malaysia has undergone a fundamental transformation over the last two decades. This book examines this transformation and explores the pressing issues it faces today. It includes coverage of: the evolution of the system since independence, from the colonial legacy of national provision bequeathed from the British to the impact of the global ideological shift against statism in the 1980s considers the responses of the Malaysian state and government policy issues such as equity of provision, women's access to health care, HIV-AIDS health care, care for the elderly. The book offers a detailed examination of the changing face of health care in Malaysia, and its impact on Malaysian citizens, users and society.
Health Care in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Routledge Library Editions: Soviet Society)
by Michael KaserHealth Care in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1976) examines the systems of health care in the Communist countries of the Eastern Bloc. Many enjoyed comprehensive free health care, established with the Communist takeovers and transition to planned economies, as they moved from an agrarian to an industrialised system. This book traces their beginnings and development, and offers comparisons between each of them as well as with the West.
Health Colonialism: Urban Wastelands and Hospital Frontiers (Forerunners: Ideas First)
by Shiloh KruparThe role of American hospital expansions in health disparities and medical apartheidHealth Colonialism considers how U.S. urban development policies contribute to the uneven and unjust distribution of health care in this country. Here, Shiloh Krupar investigates the racially inequitable effects of elite U.S. hospitals on their surrounding neighborhoods and their role in consolidating frontiers of land primed for redevelopment. Naming this frontier &“medical brownfields,&” Krupar shows how hospitals leverage their domestic real estate empires to underwrite international prospecting for patients and overseas services and specialty clinics. Her pointed analysis reveals that decolonizing health care efforts must scrutinize the land practices of nonprofit medical institutions and the liberal foundations of medical apartheid perpetuated by globalizing American health care.
Health Communication: Strategies for Developing Global Health Programs (Health Communication #5)
by Arvind Singhal Gary L. Kreps Do Kyun KimPromotion of healthy behaviors and prevention of disease are inextricably linked to cultural understandings of health and well-being. Health communication scholarship and practice can substantially and strategically contribute to people living safer, healthier, and happier lives. <p><p>This book represents a concrete step in that direction by establishing a strategic framework for guiding global and local health practices.
Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto
by Beatrice Adler-Bolton Artie VierkantA searing analysis of health and illness under capitalism from hosts of the hit podcast &“Death Panel&” In this fiery, theoretical tour-de-force, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at severing the ties between capital and one of its primary tools: health. Written by co-hosts of the hit &“Death Panel&” podcast and longtime disability justice and healthcare activists Adler-Bolton and Vierkant, Health Communism first examines how capital has instrumentalized health, disability, madness, and illness to create a class seen as &“surplus,&” regarded as a fiscal and social burden. Demarcating the healthy from the surplus, the worker from the &“unfit&” to work, the authors argue, serves not only to undermine solidarity but to mark whole populations for extraction by the industries that have emerged to manage and contain this &“surplus&” population. Health Communism then looks to the grave threat capital poses to global public health, and at the rare movements around the world that have successfully challenged the extractive economy of health. Ultimately, Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue, we will not succeed in defeating capitalism until we sever health from capital. To do this will require a radical new politics of solidarity that centers the surplus, built on an understanding that we must not base the value of human life on one&’s willingness or ability to be productive within the current political economy. Capital, it turns out, only fears health.
Health Diplomacy in Africa: Trends, Challenges, and Perspectives (Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations)
by Humphrey Ngala Ndi Henry Ngenyam Bang Zebulon Suifon Takwa Anna Tasha MburThe purpose of this book is to project diplomacy as an unavoidable instrument for monitoring, prevention and control of health and disaster risks among African countries. The book advocates health cooperation in Africa at a time when pandemics are recurrent. Outside of the WHO, many countries, even within regional groupings have not actively pursued health cooperation. We intend this book to provide the basis for advocating the inclusion of health diplomacy in the curricula of the training of the African diplomat with the hope to stimulate gradual policy shifts in foreign ministries, regional groupings, and the African Union.
Health Governance in Europe: Issues, Challenges, and Theories (Routledge/ECPR Studies in European Political Science)
by Monika SteffenHealth constitutes a core element of welfare states and a vital nerve in the trust relation between citizen and their governments. Focusing on the health sector, this book analyzes the closely interwoven relationship between the European Union and Member States.The authors explore the dynamic and multi-fold process of de-nationalizing health policies and illustrate how European policies develop in a sector that still appears to be under exclusively national competence. They describe the multiple forms and ways the Europeanization process takes, driven by market integration, public health crises and politics of consumer protection. The authors also provide a detailed analysis of key topics: the pharmaceutical sector, market regulation of medical goods and devices, food safety, the blood provision and plasma industry, European politics on bioethics, and risk reduction in the field of drug abuse.Providing a comprehensive and informed assessment of the Europeanization process in the field of health policies, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of health, European integration and policy-making.
Health Inequity Experienced by Australian Paediatric Patients: Empirical Analyses of Case Reports
by Vicki Xafis Amireh Fakhouri Kathryn Currow Stephen Brancatisano Wendy Bryan-ClothierThis book provides rare insight into how real children/adolescents’ lives unfold as a result of health inequity. The authors present the findings of empirical research into the health and social circumstances of 61 Australian children/adolescents, as reported by healthcare professionals who attended to their medical needs, revealing how healthcare professionals deal with health inequity on the ground. Profound inequities in the health and wellbeing of children/adolescents worldwide have been the focus of intense research for decades. The extent to which children/adolescents’ health and wellbeing is impacted by violence, poverty, their inability to access integrated healthcare services, parental and adolescent substance abuse, unemployment, poor living conditions, poor nutrition, a fractured social support network, disrupted education, and lack of transportation, is widely recognized. While essential, statistical analyses alone cannot reveal the faces of those experiencing health inequity. This work highlights the need for urgent coordinated action to address health inequity so that children and young people have a chance to lead a full life in good health. It is relevant to researchers and practitioners whose work relates to improving children and young people’s lives.“This book should be required reading for those who influence policies developed by all the sectors mentioned above and their funding and administrative bodies – and politicians in particular” (Anonymous Reviewer).