Health Insurance and Public Policy: Risk, Allocation, and Equity

(Hardback)

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One of the most urgent issues facing the United States today is how to establish a comprehensive health insurance programme at a time when nearly one in seven Americans lack insurance and costs for health care and medical fees are increasing at about 20 percent annually. An interdisciplinary team of experts provides an overview of the most important current problems and speaks to the key questions of risk, allocation, and equity. This text is designed for college, university, and professional courses in health and medical policy, public policy, public administration, law and society, bioethics, nursing, science and technology, and hospital administration. This public policy study offers a general framework for assessing health insurance from many vantage points, in terms of health policy impacts, the care of the needy, health insurance implementation, and prevention and risk. Chapters assess various national health insurance proposals, current congressional action and Medicare decisions, the social impacts of health insurance policy, coverage for displaced workers, the uninsured and hospital care in the inner city, charity care and community benefits, insuring high-risk persons, preventive health care screening for older women, and medical malpractice insurance, among other subjects. These analyses with real-life examples provide a solid introduction to all who want to understand health insurance and public policy issues today.

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Twelve essays examine access, equity, and cost issues raised by the US health-care financing and payment system; one based for the most part on private insurance. Part 1 examines political dynamics underlying policy formation; reviews the likely impact of alternative financing proposals on specific allocation, access, or equity goals; and, presents a social policy analysis framework for examining interaction between health care, health insurance, and health status. Part 2 looks at two special cases: those who have lost health insurance coverage through unemployment and those who rely on public/charitable hospitals for care. Part 3 examines governmental programs needed to supplement or correct current system deficiencies. Also covered are AIDS and the severely disabled as two examples of the difficulty of balancing cost-containment and equity goals. Part 4 assesses the influence of prevention and risk avoidance within the framework of health insurance on health financing and ultimately, on access to care. Extensive and representative, but at times dated, chapter references. Suitable for advanced undergraduate through professional public administration/political science collections.-Choice
"Twelve essays examine access, equity, and cost issues raised by the US health-care financing and payment system; one based for the most part on private insurance. Part 1 examines political dynamics underlying policy formation; reviews the likely impact of alternative financing proposals on specific allocation, access, or equity goals; and, presents a social policy analysis framework for examining interaction between health care, health insurance, and health status. Part 2 looks at two special cases: those who have lost health insurance coverage through unemployment and those who rely on public/charitable hospitals for care. Part 3 examines governmental programs needed to supplement or correct current system deficiencies. Also covered are AIDS and the severely disabled as two examples of the difficulty of balancing cost-containment and equity goals. Part 4 assesses the influence of prevention and risk avoidance within the framework of health insurance on health financing and ultimately, on access to care. Extensive and representative, but at times dated, chapter references. Suitable for advanced undergraduate through professional public administration/political science collections."-Choice

Author Bio

MIRIAM K. MILLS was Professor of Organizational Science at The New Jersey Institute of Technology, until her death in March 1992. A prolific writer, she co-authored Multi-Criteria Methods in Alternative Dispute Resolution (Greenwood, 1990), and co-edited Biomedical Technology and Public Policy with Robert H. Blank (Greenwood, 1989). ROBERT H. BLANK is Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of the Program for Biosocial Research at Northern Illinois University and at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. His recent books include The Political Implications of Human Genetic Technology, defining Human Life: Reproductive Technologies and Social Policy (1983) tioning Medicine (1989) fe, Death, and Public Policy (1988), and Regulating Reproduction.