This issues-based reference work (available in both print and electronic formats) shines a spotlight on health care policy and practice in the United States. Impassioned debates about the best solutions to health care in America have perennially erupted among politicians, scholars of public policy, medical professionals, and the general public. The fight over the Health Care Reform Act of 2010 brought to light a multitude of fears, challenges, obstacles, and passions that often had the effect of complicating rather than clarifying the debate. The discourse has never been more heated. The complex issues that animate the health care debate have forced the American public to grapple with the exigencies of the present system with regard to economic, fiscal, and monetary policy, especially as they relate to philosophical, often ideologically driven approaches to the problem. Americans have also had to examine their ideas about the relationship of the individual to and interaction with the state and the varied social and cultural beliefs about what an American solution to the problem of health care looks like. In light of the need to keep students, researchers, and other interested readers informed and up-to-date on the issues surrounding health care in the U.S., this volume uses introductory essays followed by point/counterpoint articles to explore prominent and perennially important debates, providing readers with views on multiple sides of this complex issue.
Features & Benefits:
- The volume is divided into three sections, each with its own Section Editor: Quality of Care Debates (Dr. Jennie Kronenfeld), Economic & Fiscal Debates (Dr. Mark Zezza), and Political, Philosophical, & Legal Debates (Prof. Wendy Parmet).
- Sections open with a Preface by the Section Editor to introduce the broad theme at hand and provide historical underpinnings.
- Each Section holds 12 chapters addressing varied aspects of the broad theme of the section.
- Chapters open with an objective, lead-in piece (or "headnote") followed by a point article and a counterpoint article.
- All pieces (headnote, point article, counterpoint article) are signed.
- For each chapter, students are referred to further readings, data sources, and other resources as a jumping-off spot for further research and more in-depth exploration.
- Finally, the volume concludes with a comprehensive index, and the electronic version of the book includes search-and-browse features, as well as the ability to link to further readings cited within chapters should they be available to the library in electronic format.
Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld is a professor in the Sociology Program in the School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University. Her research areas are medical sociology and aging and the life course with a special focus on health policy, health care utilization, and health behavior. She has recently published Medicare by Greenwood Press (2011) and serves as the editor of the research annual Research in the Sociology of Health and Health Care published each year by Emerald Press. She is co-editor of Health and Associate Editor In Chief of American Journal of Health Promotion. Her current research interests in addition to health policy include research on gender and health, and research on aspects of obesity as linked to social factors.
Wendy E. Parmet is George J. and Kathleen Waters Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Northeastern University School of Law, where she is also Director of the Program on Health Policy and Law. She is the author of Populations, Public Health, and the Law, published by Georgetown University Press in 2009 and with Professor Patricia Illingworth, Ethical Health Care, published by Prentice Hall in 2005, as well as numerous articles in medical, legal, and public policy journals on public health law, health care access, bioethics, and disability law. Professor Parmet has served as counsel on several major court cases involving health care access. She received her JD from Harvard Law School and her BA from Cornell University.
Mark A. Zezza, PhD, currently works at the Commonwealth Fund as a Senior Policy Analyst. His main issues of interest relate to payment and delivery system reform, with a focus on the development of accountable care organizations. Dr. Zezza joined the Commonwealth Fund from the Engelberg Center for Healthcare Reform at the Brookings Institution, where he managed projects evaluating and providing implementation support to health-reform initiatives on accountability payment models, health information technology, and quality measurements. Prior to Brookings, Dr. Zezza was Associate Director at the Lewin Group, working as a member of the State Healthcare Reform team to analyze the economic and coverage effects of various reform proposals. From July 1999 through 2006, Dr. Zezza worked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services analyzing and helping to operationalize various Medicare payment systems. He holds a BS in Math and Psychology from Dickinson College, an MA in Economic Policy Analysis from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a PhD in Public Policy from the same institution.
