The reform of American medical care is the most important topic on the nation's domestic agenda and the centerpiece of the Clinton administration's plans for social policy and long-term economic development. This book, written by a preeminent analyst of medical politics and policy who is a frequent adviser to Congress, helps to clarify the current debate over the President's bill and the proposed alternatives to it. It is essential reading. Theodore Marmor, whose work has appeared in the nation's major newspapers and magazines, as well as in scholarly journals and books, here presents some of his most recent writings that illuminate the historical, political, and economic considerations behind various proposals now under debate. Marmor explains what we can and cannot expect from reform of American medicine, and he addresses the many conflicting claims about remedies for America's problems with medical costs, quality of care, and access to treatment.

Political Science Abstracts is an annual supplement to the Political Science, Government, and Public Policy Series of The Universal Reference System, which was first published in 1967. All back issues are still available.

Published in 1998, this collection of essays on the management of healthcare look at topics such as: income, distribution and life expectancy; internal market reform of the National Health Service; the changing nature of the medical profession; and doctors as managers.

Implementing Change in Health Systems brings fresh thinking and evidence to the continuing debate about market reforms of health care and other public services. The book examines the development and implementation of national cost-containment programs and health system reorganizations in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands - countries that have been leaders in health system reform. The book provides a new framework for analysing public policy implementation and system change, synthesizing diverse streams of academic research and thinking. It explores the processes of implementing market reforms in each country and considers the outcomes, both expected and unintended. In all three countries competitive reform encountered serious technical, organizational and political obstacles. Yet they triggered important system changes and paved the way for significant new health policies. The complex outcomes of the reforms included o changes in the quality, efficiency and costs of care o growing managerial and political control over physicians and other health care professionals o increased influence and centrality of community-based care o Diffusion of ideas and practices from business management into health care. Implementing Change in Health Systems sheds new light on crucial policy issues that are currently being debated throughout Europe and North America. The book will be of value to postgraduates, researchers, and practitioners in health policy and public policy. MICHAEL I. HARRISON is an internationally-known scholar of health systems and organizations. He is a Senior Research Scientist at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Rockville, MD and Associate Professor of Sociology at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He has taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the School of Management at Boston College and has been a Visiting Scholar at Brandeis University, Georgetown University, Harvard Business School, and the Nordic School of Public Health.

Most advanced democracies are currently experiencing accelerated population ageing, which fundamentally changes not just their demographic composition; it can also be expected to have far-reaching political and policy consequences. This volume brings together an expert set of scholars from Europe and North America to investigate generational politics and public policies within an approach explicitly focusing on comparative political science. This theoretically unified text examines changing electoral policy demands due to demographic ageing, and features analysis of USA, UK, Japan, Germany, Italy and all major EU countries. As the first sustained political science analysis of population ageing, this monograph examines both sides of the debate. It examines the actions of the state against the interests of a growing elderly voting bloc to safeguard fiscal viability, and looks at highly-topical responses such as pension cuts and increasing retirement age. It also examines the rise of ‘grey parties’, and asks what, if anything, makes such pensioner parties persist over time, in the first ever analysis of the emergence of pensioner parties in Europe. Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, and to those studying electoral and social policy reform. Official publication date 1st January 2012.

Arguing that health care should be a human right rather than a commodity, the distinguished contributors to this volume call for a new social covenant establishing a right to a standard of health care consistent with society's level of resources. By linking rights with limits, they offer a framework for seeking national consensus on a cost-conscious standard of universal medical care. The authors identify the policy implications of recognizing and implementing such a right and develop specific criteria to measure the success of health care reform from a human rights perspective. Health Care Reform also offers specific and timely criticism of managed competition and its offspring, the Clinton plan for health care reform. Because health care reform will inevitably be an ongoing process of assessment and revision—especially since managed competition has not been implemented elsewhere—this book will last beyond the moment by providing vital standards to guide the future evolution of the health care system.

This book explores the interaction between public health policies and social inequality. It probes three issues: What groups wield the greatest influence over the policy process? Who gains the most benefits from health policies? How can we best understand the policy link between health and social inequalities? A theory of social opportunities clarifies the reasons for policy effectiveness, particularly the impact of public programmes on the environmental and personal conditions that improve people's health.