Healthcare Policy

The health care system has always been a challenge for clients to navigate. In today's world of managed care, PPO's and the rest of the alphabet soup that comprises the health care system as well as the problems of decreasing resources and reimbursements, privatization of health care institutions, AIDS, cancer and fears of bioterrorism, finding one's way through the maze is more daunting than ever. So, how do clients find their way? The sad truth is that many do not and others succeed only after many failed attempts.

Reform of the U.S. Health Care System: Issues of Access to Health Care Services and Health Care Insurance

Whether the U.S. system needs reforming and how to reform it are clearly among the most important health care policy issues for the coming decades, just as, in many ways, they have been the most important policy issues of the past 10 years. One reason for this is that reform of the system always begins a discussion of who now has access to health care and whether that access varies across the population. This leads to a discussion about insurance coverage and its variation, along with an examination of major national programs already in place to deal with issues of access to health care services and to help provide insurance coverage to certain population groups. This book has already accounted for some of the coverage issues of special groups, such as the role of the Medicare program with the elderly as well as the role of Medicaid and newer programs such as CHIP with those having lower incomes, especially children. This chapter will cover patterns of health insurance and access to care, earlier attempts to reform the U.S. health care system, current issues related to managed care, and some of the political issues involved in fundamental reform of our system. All of these patterns form a consistent backdrop about what is likely and