Product Description

"This highly readable text gives a broad but detailed picture of how health care is organized and dispensed in the United States." -Annals of Internal Medicine, on the First Edition

The #1 text on health policy, this well-known book provides a short introduction to U.S. health care policy by two leading experts who are themselves practicing physicians. The Fourth Edition features the latest information on cost containment, health insurance, managed care, hospital payment, and the new two-tier model of physician reimbursement.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3082 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 388 pages

Book Info
Univ. of California, San Francisco. Attempts to explain how the healthcare system works. Focuses on basic principles of health policy and concentrates on the failures of the system. Includes clinical vignettes. For students in the health sciences. Previous edition: c1998. Softcover.

From the Back Cover

"This highly readable text gives a broad but detailed picture of how health care is organized and dispensed in the United States. It considers the problems of, and possible solutions for, cost control, long-term care, quality control, ethical issues, and insurance programs. Clinicians are likely to find the text attractive because of its supportive flowcharts and its frequent use of specific, concrete examples."
Annals of Internal Medicine *
"Well documented and highly readable."
National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Facilities Newsletter *

"One of the more interesting, readable texts in health policy to appear in recent years."
American Journal of Health System Pharmacy *

"The title doesn't do the book justice. It's not only about health care policy and its implications, it's about the health care system, applied to highly clinically relevant situations . . . it provides an unobstructed view of the complicated health care system."
Advance/PA*

"Goes a long way toward helping readers understand how the health care system worked in the past, how it is changing, and how it might work under different scenarios in the future."
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law *

The leading text in the field, Understanding Health Policy covers fundamental topics such as cost containment, health insurance, managed care, and physician and hospital payment. The authors bring to life important policy issues by providing extensive case histories that pinpoint individual encounters within the health care system.

Features:
* Updated throughout to reflect recent changes in insurance coverage, health care expenditures, and health care organization
* Expanded to include discussion of the defined contribution approach to cost control, medical errors, and new approaches to quality improvement and the uncertain future facing managed care
* Extensive case histories
* Brand new chapter on the Health Care Work Force, including sections on physicians, registered nurses, advanced practice nurses, and pharmacists and on women and minorities in the health professions
* Includes "Questions and Discussion Topics" for classroom or individual study

*Of earlier edition

About the Author
Thomas S. Bodenheimer, MD, MPH, University of California, San Francisco Kevin Grumbach, MD, University of California, San Francisco

Customer Reviews

Good overview, but only half the story
As another reviewer noted, this book starts from the premise that health care is a right. As a result of this perspective, the first several chapters feature "sob stories" on nearly every page detailing hypothetical examples of people who are put in a bad situation in our current system. Now, our current system is deeply flawed and any unbiased observer would concede this point, but it struck me as odd that the authors would commenti so heavily on the shortfalls of the American system, and so little on the shortfalls of "universal models" of the type they advocate (long waiting time for the majority of procedures, crowded emergency rooms, less use of advanced technologies, health care rationing, and many of the best doctors leaving the country).

In summary, this is a very well researched book and there is little if anything stated here that isn't true. There is, however, a great deal that is deemphasized or simply unsaid because it does not support the authors preconceived ideas of what an idea health care model ought to look like.

Everything You Want To Know
This book turned out to be worth more than I paid for. It's an easy read - and gives you fictional stories explaining the concepts behind health care issues and scenarios to help you put into perspective what the author is talking about. The stories are extremely helpful if you are a newbie to public health and health care issues. Should be one of the books you keep on the shelf to refer to from time to time. You cant go wrong with this book.

Should health care be a right?
Beware: This is an highly ideological text that starts with the assumption that health care is a right! It than goes on to say that in order to fulfill that right it is necessary to control the costs of health care. Obviously, cost control is a very problematic economic proposition that calls for state intervention and that sometimes has consequences that are the opposite of what is desired.
In the UK, where health care is a right, cost control has led to shortages, waiting lists and an overall degradation of health care. The UK, currently, has the highest mortality rates for oncological problems of all the EU countries and British people got used to flying to France and India for medical care. Canadians also have shortages and Canadians resort to the US.
Sometimes a "right" can easily turn into a "wrong"!