Synopsis
Like its predecessors, the third edition of Health Policy Issues: An Economic Perspective will help readers understand the issues underlying the politics and economics of health services. This policy primer uses an economic approach to explain the forces pressing for change in healthcare, as well as why the health system has evolved to its current state.
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Reviewer:Carole Ann Kenner, DNS, MSN, BSN(Northeastern University Bouve College of Health Sciences)
Description:This health policy book is unique in that it is issues driven, but written within the context of market economy. The previous edition was published in 2003.
Purpose:The purpose is to discuss health policy within the context of markets, and issues frame the presentation.
Audience:The intended audience is health policy students and students interested in economics. It is also equally suitable for practitioners who want to understand the dynamics of health policy.
Features:The book starts with medical expenditures and moves on to health insurance, manpower shortages, malpractice, healthcare delivery, and healthcare systems addressing health care reform, managed care, Internet incorporation, prescription drug costs, organ donation/selling, medical research, national health insurance, and financing long term care. For the most part, the information is delivered in short sections that keep the reader's attention and chapters end with discussion questions and references. While the topics are extensive, there is a lack of depth in some areas. For example, the discussion of the nursing shortage provides the supply and demand figures, but fails to note that a great deal of the shortage is due to faculty who are aging. Additionally, from an economic standpoint, industry is luring away masters and doctorally prepared nurses, a fact that is not mentioned. Also not addressed is the economic impact on workforce and economic development when health outcomes are poor or there are no "healthy" workers.
Assessment:This book is unique in its discussion of health policy using an economic and issues driven format. It is more extensive in the number of topics it addresses, but it provides less depth than Hollister's Health Policy: Crisis and Reform in the U.S. Health Care Delivery System, 5th edition (Jones and Bartlett, 2008). This fourth edition does reflect new information in the areas of the future role of hospitals, market competition, and public policy and the pharmaceutical industry that today's health policy students need.