17.315 Comparative Health Policy, Fall 2004

Abstract

This course examines in comparative prospective the health care policy problems facing the United States including providing adequate access to medical services for all, the control of rising health care costs, and the assurance that the quality of health care services is high and improving. It explores the market and regulatory policy options being debated politically in the United States to solve these problems and compares possible foreign models for reform including those offered by the Canadian, British, Japanese, and German systems. The course shows how the historical development of the American health care system limits greatly policy options that can be considered and creates pressures that favor a continuing emphasis on technology and structural decentralization. The course also examines important health risks and the political and organizational factors that distort the public's understanding of these risks.