As millions of Americans are aware, health care costs continue to increase rapidly. Much of this increase is due to the development of new life-sustaining drugs and procedures, but part of it is due to the increased monopoly power of physicians, insurance companies, and hospitals, as the health care sector undergoes reorganization and consolidation. There are two tools to limit the growth of monopoly power: government regulation and antitrust policy. In this timely book, Deborah Haas-Wilson argues that enforcement of the antitrust laws is the tool of choice in most cases.
The antitrust laws, when wisely enforced, permit markets to work competitively and therefore efficiently. Competitive markets foster low prices and high quality. Applying antitrust tools wisely, however, is a tricky business, and Haas-Wilson carefully explains how it can be done. Focusing on the economic concepts necessary to the enforcement of the antitrust laws in health care markets, Haas-Wilson provides a useful roadmap for guiding the future of these markets.
For over thirty years, David F. Kelly has worked with medical practitioners, students, families, and the sick and dying to confront the difficult and often painful issues that concern medical treatment at the end of life. In this short and practical book, Kelly shares his vast experience, providing a rich resource for thinking about life's most painful decisions.
Kelly outlines eight major issues regarding end-of-life care as seen through the lens of the Catholic medical ethics tradition. He looks at the distinction between ordinary and extraordinary means; the difference between killing and allowing to die; criteria of patient competence; what to do in the case of incompetent patients; the meaning and use of advance directives; the morality of hydration and nutrition; physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia; and medical futility. Kelly's analysis is sprinkled with significant legal decisions and, throughout, elaborations on how the Catholic medical ethics tradition—as well as teachings of bishops and popes—understands each issue. He provides a helpful glossary to supplement his introduction to the terminology used by philosophical health care ethics. Included in Kelly's discussion is his lucid description of why the Catholic tradition supports the discontinuation of medical care in the Terry Schiavo case. He also explores John Paul II's controversial papal allocution concerning hydration and nutrition for unconscious patients, arguing that the Catholic tradition does not require feeding the permanently unconscious.
Medical Care at the End of Life addresses the major issues that inform this last stage of caregiving. It offers a critical guide to understanding the medical ethics and relevant legal cases needed for clear thinking when individuals are faced with those crucial decisions.
Runaway medical costs, long-term care, market competition, for-profit medicine, nursing shortages—these are but a few of the issues that swirl around in the late twentieth century’s volatile health care scene. How much of the system do we want to change, and how much do we want to keep? Health policy expert Eli Ginzberg examines such crucial questions in his characteristically broad-gauged perspective. Framing the issues in their historical, political, and professional contexts, the author analyzes how we have arrived at the current crisis.
The book focuses on the three sides of the medical triangle that have separate and sometimes conflicting goals: the physicians want to provide the most health care for the most money; the government, which furnishes 40 percent of the system's funding, wants to limit the money it pays out for health care; and the public, with over a billion annual visits to doctors, wants the most health care for the least money.
Ginzberg explains how the core components of our health care system—the community hospital and physicians who have long practiced in a fee-for-service mode—are under attack, and he indicates the factors that make it uncertain whether the destabilization will slow down or accelerate. Moreover, can key health care centers maintain their leadership in a time when new dollars for health are scarce? How will the floundering state of foundations affect medical care in local communities?
In his final chapters the author zeroes in on the special concerns of the public: high-need patients (including those suffering from cancer, catastrophic illness, and the infirmities of old age, or those who are mentally ill or chronically poor), nursing shortages, unsuccessful cost containment, and lack of consensus within the medical triangle about the major issues on our nation's health agenda.
The four years of the Civil War saw bloodshed on a scale unprecedented in the history of the United States. Thousands of soldiers and sailors from both sides who survived the horrors of the war faced hardship for the rest of their lives as amputees. Now Guy R. Hasegawa presents the first volume to explore the wartime provisions made for amputees in need of artificial limbs—programs that, while they revealed stark differences between the resources and capabilities of the North and the South, were the forebears of modern government efforts to assist in the rehabilitation of wounded service members.
Hasegawa draws upon numerous sources of archival information to offer a comprehensive look at the artificial limb industry as a whole, including accounts of the ingenious designs employed by manufacturers and the rapid advancement of medical technology during the Civil War; illustrations and photographs of period prosthetics; and in-depth examinations of the companies that manufactured limbs for soldiers and bid for contracts, including at least one still in existence today. An intriguing account of innovation, determination, humanitarianism, and the devastating toll of battle, Mending Broken Soldiers shares the never-before-told story of the artificial-limb industry of the Civil War and provides a fascinating glimpse into groundbreaking military health programs during the most tumultuous years in American history.
Univeristy Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools 2013 edition
Given recent developments in health care and policy and a steadily increasing population of people of Mexican origin in the United States, a comprehensive look at Mexican American health has never been more necessary. Adela de la Torre and Antonio Estrada first accomplished such an overview with Mexican Americans and Health in 2001, and they have since continued to revise and expand their initial work. With a multitude of additions and renovations, Mexican Americans and Health, 2nd Edition provides a timely and accessible description of current topics in Latino health.
De la Torre and Estrada once again present a broad and nuanced understanding of recent issues involving Mexican American health and well-being, this time with the addition of discussions on:
* the new U.S. Human Development Index to contextualize the health, education, and income status of Mexican Americans relative to other population groups,
* emerging diseases, such as diabetes and obesity,
* recent health-care reforms under the Obama administration,
* substance abuse, sexual risk, and psychological distress among HIV-positive individuals in the gay/bisexual community,
* and predictions of future trends for the next decade.
This new volume has been updated throughout to reflect the many developments in health care since its first edition. Mexican Americans and Health, 2nd Edition continues to present data on a large number of health issues that are important and relevant to the Mexican American population, while describing the social contexts in which they are occurring. Its comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach brings originality and focus to a dynamic literature.
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