COMPARATIVE HEALTHCARE

Our US employer-based health insurance system is crumbling - with the result that there are more uninsured people with less access to needed health services.  In 2005, the number of uninsured climbed to 47 million, the result of steady increase since 2000. Even more disturbing are the present trends that show the number of uninsured could reach 56 million by 2013.

Health care is expected to account for $1 of every $5 spent in the United States in another decade.Over the coming decade, spending on health care will continue to outpace the overall economy. By the year 2016, it will total nearly $4 trillion, economists at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have stated.


But the time for change is ripe - in 1994, the business community said we can’t afford healthcare reform. In 2007, the business community is saying we can’t afford not to fix American healthcare. Leaders are saying the country is willing to accept the proposition that you cannot fix American healthcare without getting everybody a solid, affordable, good quality health plan, a plan with prevention, with outpatient, with catastrophic, with the basics. We have in this country essentially sick care rather than healthcare.  There are multiple plans for reform on the agenda which we will explore.

 

This intensive format (Saturdays and online course) facilitates an analysis of major health service delivery and administration within a theoretical context by looking at linkages and interconnections, the nature of health system boundaries, external influences, and metacultural frames exploration; to promote a broader understanding of how health care systems operate in industrial countries, third world countries and tribal programs in the United States. A look abroad can often provide insights about problems at home and promote innovations.



 




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