Download or read book What Do the American People Think about Federal Health Insurance written by National Opinion Research Center and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Care Without Coverage written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-06-20 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.
Download or read book What Do the American People Think about Federal Health Insurance written by National Opinion Research Center and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What Do the American People Think about Federal Health Insurance written by National Opinion Research Center and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What Do the American People Think about Federal Health Insurance written by National Opinion Research Center and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book U S Health in International Perspective written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Download or read book Coverage Matters written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-10-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roughly 40 million Americans have no health insurance, private or public, and the number has grown steadily over the past 25 years. Who are these children, women, and men, and why do they lack coverage for essential health care services? How does the system of insurance coverage in the U.S. operate, and where does it fail? The first of six Institute of Medicine reports that will examine in detail the consequences of having a large uninsured population, Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care, explores the myths and realities of who is uninsured, identifies social, economic, and policy factors that contribute to the situation, and describes the likelihood faced by members of various population groups of being uninsured. It serves as a guide to a broad range of issues related to the lack of insurance coverage in America and provides background data of use to policy makers and health services researchers.
Download or read book Federalism and Health Policy written by Alan Weil and published by The Urban Insitute. This book was released on 2003 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The balance between state and federal health care financing for low-income people has been a matter of considerable debate for the last 40 years. Some argue for a greater federal role, others for more devolution of responsibility to the states. Medicaid, the backbone of the system, has been plagued by an array of problems that have made it unpopular and difficult to use to extend health care coverage. In recent years, waivers have given the states the flexibility to change many features of their Medicaid programs; moreover, the states have considerable flexibility to in establishing State Children's Health Insurance Programs. This book examines the record on the changing health safety net. How well have states done in providing acute and long-term care services to low-income populations? How have they responded to financial incentives and federal regulatory requirements? How innovative have they been? Contributing authors include Donald J. Boyd, Randall R. Bovbjerg, Teresa A. Coughlin, Ian Hill, Michael Housman, Robert E. Hurley, Marilyn Moon, Mary Beth Pohl, Jane Tilly, and Stephen Zuckerman.
Download or read book Health Insurance is a Family Matter written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-09-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health Insurance is a Family Matter is the third of a series of six reports on the problems of uninsurance in the United Sates and addresses the impact on the family of not having health insurance. The book demonstrates that having one or more uninsured members in a family can have adverse consequences for everyone in the household and that the financial, physical, and emotional well-being of all members of a family may be adversely affected if any family member lacks coverage. It concludes with the finding that uninsured children have worse access to and use fewer health care services than children with insurance, including important preventive services that can have beneficial long-term effects.
Download or read book Introduction to U S Health Policy written by Donald A. Barr and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 659 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health care reform has dominated public discourse over the past several years, and the recent passage of the Affordable Care Act, rather than quell the rhetoric, has sparked even more debate. Donald A. Barr reviews the current structure of the American health care system, describing the historical and political contexts in which it developed and the core policy issues that continue to confront us today. This comprehensive analysis introduces the various organizations and institutions that make the U.S. health care system work—or fail to work, as the case may be. A principal message of the book is the seeming paradox of the quality of health care in this country—on the one hand it is the best medical care system in the world, on the other it is one of the worst among developed countries because of how it is organized. Barr introduces readers to broad cultural issues surrounding health care policy, such as access, affordability, and quality. He discusses specific elements of U.S. health care, including insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid, the shift to for-profit managed care, the pharmaceutical industry, issues of long-term care, the plight of the uninsured, medical errors, and nursing shortages. The latest edition of this widely adopted text updates the description and discussion of key sectors of America’s health care system in light of the Affordable Care Act.
Download or read book Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High Income Countries written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2011-06-27 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last 25 years, life expectancy at age 50 in the United States has been rising, but at a slower pace than in many other high-income countries, such as Japan and Australia. This difference is particularly notable given that the United States spends more on health care than any other nation. Concerned about this divergence, the National Institute on Aging asked the National Research Council to examine evidence on its possible causes. According to Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, the nation's history of heavy smoking is a major reason why lifespans in the United States fall short of those in many other high-income nations. Evidence suggests that current obesity levels play a substantial part as well. The book reports that lack of universal access to health care in the U.S. also has increased mortality and reduced life expectancy, though this is a less significant factor for those over age 65 because of Medicare access. For the main causes of death at older ages-cancer and cardiovascular disease-available indicators do not suggest that the U.S. health care system is failing to prevent deaths that would be averted elsewhere. In fact, cancer detection and survival appear to be better in the U.S. than in most other high-income nations, and survival rates following a heart attack also are favorable. Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries identifies many gaps in research. For instance, while lung cancer deaths are a reliable marker of the damage from smoking, no clear-cut marker exists for obesity, physical inactivity, social integration, or other risks considered in this book. Moreover, evaluation of these risk factors is based on observational studies, which-unlike randomized controlled trials-are subject to many biases.
Download or read book America s Uninsured Crisis written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When policy makers and researchers consider potential solutions to the crisis of uninsurance in the United States, the question of whether health insurance matters to health is often an issue. This question is far more than an academic concern. It is crucial that U.S. health care policy be informed with current and valid evidence on the consequences of uninsurance for health care and health outcomes, especially for the 45.7 million individuals without health insurance. From 2001 to 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued six reports, which concluded that being uninsured was hazardous to people's health and recommended that the nation move quickly to implement a strategy to achieve health insurance coverage for all. The goal of this book is to inform the health reform policy debateâ€"in 2009â€"with an up-to-date assessment of the research evidence. This report addresses three key questions: What are the dynamics driving downward trends in health insurance coverage? Is being uninsured harmful to the health of children and adults? Are insured people affected by high rates of uninsurance in their communities?
Download or read book An American Sickness written by Elisabeth Rosenthal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.
Download or read book The Future of Public Health written by Committee for the Study of the Future of Public Health and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1988-01-15 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.
Download or read book Health Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide benefits based on disability: the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. This report analyzes health care utilizations as they relate to impairment severity and SSA's definition of disability. Health Care Utilization as a Proxy in Disability Determination identifies types of utilizations that might be good proxies for "listing-level" severity; that is, what represents an impairment, or combination of impairments, that are severe enough to prevent a person from doing any gainful activity, regardless of age, education, or work experience.
Download or read book Understanding Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-09-08 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the population of older Americans grows, it is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Differences in health by racial and ethnic status could be increasingly consequential for health policy and programs. Such differences are not simply a matter of education or ability to pay for health care. For instance, Asian Americans and Hispanics appear to be in better health, on a number of indicators, than White Americans, despite, on average, lower socioeconomic status. The reasons are complex, including possible roles for such factors as selective migration, risk behaviors, exposure to various stressors, patient attitudes, and geographic variation in health care. This volume, produced by a multidisciplinary panel, considers such possible explanations for racial and ethnic health differentials within an integrated framework. It provides a concise summary of available research and lays out a research agenda to address the many uncertainties in current knowledge. It recommends, for instance, looking at health differentials across the life course and deciphering the links between factors presumably producing differentials and biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to impaired health.
Download or read book Reinsuring Health written by Katherine Swartz and published by . This book was released on 2006-05-11 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's current system of health insurance, which relies almost exclusively on employer-sponsored coverage, is in danger of collapse, and this problem is not limited to the poor and working class. An increasing number of middle class Americans do not have employer-provided insurance and—due to skyrocketing premiums—cannot afford to purchase coverage for themselves. Reinsuring Health, by economist Katherine Swartz, examines this growing national crisis and outlines a concrete plan to make health insurance accessible and affordable for all Americans. Reinsuring Health documents why the number of uninsured Americans—now 45.5 million people—has grown in the last twenty-five years. Swartz focuses on how labor market changes—such as the decline of domestic manufacturing, decreased unionization, and the growth of non-standard work arrangements—have led U.S. employers to retreat from providing health insurance for their workers. These trends, combined with the increasing costs of medical care, have led to an explosion in health insurance premiums and a decline in coverage, particularly among the middle-class. Since those who seek insurance as individuals are generally most likely to need health care, private insurers charge higher premiums in the individual (non-group) markets than to people who obtain group insurance. This makes individual health insurance less attractive to the young and increasingly unaffordable for middle-class Americans. Similarly, insurers charge higher per person (or per family) premiums to small firms than to large companies, so many small firms do not sponsor coverage for their employees. Reinsuring Health shows how these problems can be overcome if the federal government provides a new reinsurance program which would protect insurance companies that provide small group and individual health insurance against the possibility that their policy-holders will incur very high medical expenses. By assuming some of the risk that people will face extremely costly medical bills, the government will make insurers less hesitant to offer coverage to high-risk individuals, and will help drive down premiums for others. Reinsuring Health demonstrates that this form of government reinsurance has worked in the past, helping to establish smooth running private markets for catastrophe insurance and secondary mortgages. Today, growing numbers of middle class Americans lack health insurance. Protection against the possibility of falling ill or getting hurt and having to pay extraordinary health care bills should not be a luxury available only to the very rich and the very poor. Reinsuring Health proposes a straightforward solution that would bring health insurance back within the reach of the increasing ranks of the uninsured, particularly those who are in the middle class.
