Policy Analysis

"...analyzes current U.S. health policy and proposes various alternatives for developing future health policy without pushing a single solution set--rather, it considers the viewpoints of economics, political science, management, communications, technology, and public health."

"This is a book about health policy as well as individual patients and caregivers and how they interact with each other and with the overall health system. When treating a patient's illness, health expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product or variations in surgical rates between one city and another seem remote if not irrelevant-but they are neither remote nor irrelevant. Health policy affects the patients we see on a daily basis. Managed care referral rules determine which specialist will see a patient; coverage gaps in the Medicare benefit package affects access to care for the elderly. Understanding Health Policy hopes to bridge the gap separating the microworld of individual patient care and the macrouniverse of health policy."