...Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Health Care Systems In discussions of health care reform, the Canadian system is often held up as a possible model for the U.S. The two countries' health care systems are very different-Canada has a single-payer, mostly publicly-funded system, while the U.S. has a multi-payer, heavily private system-but the countries appear to be culturally similar, suggesting that it might be possible for the U.S. to adopt the Canadian system. Much of the appeal of the Canadian system is that it seems to do more for less. Canada provides universal access to health care for its citizens, while nearly one in five non-elderly Americans is uninsured. Canada spends far less of its GDP on health care (10.4 percent, ver-sus 16 percent in the U.S.) yet performs better than the U.S. on two commonly cited health outcome measures, the infant mortality rate and life expectancy. In "Health Status, Health Care, and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S.," (NBER Working Paper 13429) June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill take a closer look at the performance of the U.S. and Canadian health care systems. The authors examine whether the Canadian system delivers better health outcomes and distributes health resources more equitably than the U.S. system. The authors begin by examining the evidence on health outcomes. They note that the infant mortality rate and life expectancy are affected by many factors other than the health care system. For example, low birthweight-a phenomenon known to...
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...Healthcare in Germany vs. U.S.A Western Governors University Organizational Systems and Quality Leadership Germany’s and the United States’ healthcare systems compare and contrast in many ways. Germany has the third richest economy in the world and many categorize their healthcare system as socialized. Germany provides medical care to all of the citizens—young, poor, old, sick, and injured. Otto von Bismarck the Prussian chancellor in the 1880s in Germany invented the concept of healthcare systems, the notion that a government has to provide mechanisms so all its people can get medical care when they need it. In 1883, the Sickness Insurance Act was passed, representing the first social insurance program. Over the past 130 years the system has grown to the point where virtually all of the population is provided access to medical care. The Germans have what they call “Sickness Funds”, which are paid for by premiums based on income to one of 240 private insurers. A worker earning 60,000 would split a $750 family premium with their employer. It is more expensive than the U.K. but cheaper than the U.S. by about two thirds. It is a system where the rich pay for the poor and the ill are covered by the healthy (Saul, 2014). The United States healthcare system until recently has been mostly controlled by private industries and insurance companies, although we do have Medicare and Medicaid for the old and poor. Recently the Affordable Healthcare Act has been passed which requires...
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...Understanding the U.S. health services system (4th ed.). Chicago: Health Administration Press. * Course Text: Understanding the U.S. Health Services System * * Chapter 8, "The Health Services Workforce" * Chapter 9, "Hospitals" (Note: This chapter was assigned in a previous week; review it as needed with this week's focus in mind.) * Chapter 10, "Biomedical Research, Health Services Technology, and Technology Assessment" * Chapters 11, "Overview of the U.S. Health Services Delivery System" * Chapter 13, "Primary Care" * Chapter 14, "Secondary Care" * Chapter 15, "Long-Term Care" (pp. 349–369 only) * Chapter 16, "Tertiary Care" * Chapter 17, "Palliative Care" * Chapter 18, "The Care of Special Populations and Special Disorders" (pp. 399–406 only) * Chapter 19, "The Health Services Delivery System: How Managed Care Has Influenced Delivery" (Note: This chapter was assigned in a previous week; review it as needed with this week's focus in mind.) * Article: The Scan Foundation (2011). Improving the continuum of care: Progress on selected provisions of the affordable care act one year post-passage. http://www.thescanfoundation.org/improving-continuum-care-progress-selected-provisions-affordable-care-act-one-year-post-passage As you have learned, health care services are provided through a range of organizations. For this Discussion, you will consider how direct- and indirect-care organizations...
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...University Health care The United States is having major problems with crisis in health care such as high insurance cost, Medicaid and Medicare recipients, and uninsured people in America. The United States focus on Universal Health care or coverage. “The goal of universal health coverage is to ensure that all people obtain the health services they need without suffering financial hardship when paying for them (WHO, 2014)”. The cost of health care is continuing to rise and millions of people are without medical insurance. Business and facilities are closing, loss of jobs, high unemployment rates have become major crisis in health care in the United States. People who are employed are face with the challenges of being uninsured or paying higher rates but receiving lesser coverage. In addition, I will read and analyze the two articles, “The Health Care Crisis and What to do about it, (Krugman & Robin, 2006)”, and “Health Care Special Issue: Creative Destruction, (Cohn, 2007)”. “THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT, (KRUGMAN & WELLS 2006)” The United States are continuing to have health care crisis such as high cost of insurance coverage, people who are uninsured, Medicaid and Medicare recipients, high unemployment rates and many other problems. The article “The Health Care Crisis and What to do about it, (Krugman & Wells, 2006)” discusses the crisis that America is experiencing and what solutions should be taking to improve the system of health care. The...
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...Funding the Rising Cost of U.S. Health Care. BY Vilando. HSA500 November 15, 2015 Funding the Rising Cost of U.S. Health Care. The United States continues to spend significantly more on health care than any country in the world, however, even though with this statistics the U.S has a lot of uninsured and does not have the healthiest citizens. In this paper, opinions will be given on the rising cost of overall’s health care’s impact in the U.S economy, followed by a comparising and contrasting factors impacted by the new health care act, pros and cons of using the private insurance rather than using the new health care reforms and the cost associated with its implementation and access to different groups will also be discussed. Rising Cost of Health Care The cost of the U.S health care system is higher than any country in the world. Its efficiency is also under serious scrutiny. If it was not an emergency, most physicians would require insurance verification. Therefore patients will be delayed of treatment. Moreover, the health care system in the U.S should be redesigned in terms of prevention rather than treatment with people who are already sick. Insurance should not go higher for people that have pre-existing conditions or with more health risk. Also the emergence and new discoveries in the field of...
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...PRISON IN AMERICA Since the beginning of time there has been good and evil, as man developed modern society he found that a need existed to separate the bad from the good. Society needed to find a way to protect the weak and defenseless citizens from the dangers of mankind. The use of confinement to punish offenders began in Europe in the early eighteen century. The concept of incarcerating offenders for long periods of time as a way of punishment for crimes is fairly new development in America. (McShane, Williams 1996) Before 1770’s with a few exceptions serious offenders received fines, corporal punishment, death, and banishment, but they were not incarcerated as a form of punishment. (McShane, Williams 1996) Jails were made to only hold people awaiting trail and minor offenses. This was in accordance with Puritan views that man was born into sin and punishment was God’s way of dealing with sin and evil deeds. This type of thinking was thrown out due to changing ways of criminal behavior. Now enter the modern institution designed to deal with this new breed of criminal behaviors. The first prison in America is supposed to be the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia (1790) There is however another, an abandoned copper mine in Connecticut which was converted into a prison. In 1773 Newgate prison accepted its first inmate by the 1820’s it was closed due to rising costs. (McShane, Williams 1996) This was the first institution designed to incarcerate offenders with...
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...From people on the streets to politicians, the word “ideology” is heard every once and a while here and there, but what does it actually mean? An ideology is a perspective; a view on how something should or shouldn’t be done. The dictionary definition of the word ideology is as follows: “A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy:” [1]. This definition is an unbiased definition; not taking sides nor being aligned with any single ideology. It refers to people and their ideals on a specific concept, often based on political sciences or economics. In a review of contemporary media, John Hess expresses the term ideology in his own way, giving us his own interpretation: "Ideology...
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...a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty (J.E. Quidam, 2008). This ideology seems to have evolved and held truth for the past 227 years as now Americans are even more divided by political parties than any other stature. According to Edward S. Greenberg and Benjamin I. Page’s “The Struggle for Democracy”, political ideology is defined as a system of interrelated and coherently organized political beliefs and attitudes, which include conservatives, liberals, populists, and libertarians (145). Greenburg and Page further describe that the “two dimensions” that Americans generally divide along are government’s roles in economy and society (147). Conservatism can be defined as the disposition to preserve or restore what is established and traditional and to limit change (2013). There two different types of conservatives, economic and social. Economic conservatives believe more in economic liberties and freedoms from government interference, and that a free market offers the best path to economic efficiency and a decent society. They strongly believe in private enterprise and are...
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...Medical Smart Card System for Patient Record Management Changrui Xiao and Arthur Yu Bears Breaking Boundaries 2009 Science, Technology, and Energy Policy White Paper Competition Executive Summary (Abstract) Rising healthcare spending has led to an increase in calls for ways to reduce the cost of healthcare. Amid the debate on the best approach on cut costs in the healthcare system, one of the few bipartisan provisions is the need to integrate modern technology into the storage and transfer of medical records. Current attempts to establish such electronic medical records are challenged by concerns about patient privacy, issues with the incorporation of old records, and budget limitations. We propose the development of personal portable healthcare record smart cards and a corresponding framework to simplify maintenance and transfer of patient records as an incremental step towards a nationalized electronic records system. Our proposal is a feasible and cost-effective system that applies existing technology to address inefficiencies of the current paper based medical records system; simultaneously, it also serves as a transition system to facilitate the adoption of completely electronic medical records. Author Affiliations: Xiao and Yu are both undergraduates at UC Berkeley. Contact Information: ayu.yua@gmail.com or crx687@berkeley.edu 1 1. Introduction During the second half of the 20th century, the national expenditure on healthcare increased dramatically. As of...
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...I hope to provide in this paper a comprehensive understanding for what the term “hospital” has become. Hospitals are an extremely complex system that man has created and shaped and reshaped throughout history. My goal in writing and researching this paper will be to provide those who read it a clear understanding on how the hospital system got to where it is today, and to shed some light on the many organizations that affiliate with and contribute to all the wonderful things that hospitals do for people. The evolution of hospitals is one of the most interesting things (in my opinion) that history has to offer. Long before America was even in existence there were places of care located throughout all of the world and depending on where you lived determined how you would be treated. I am primarily going to focus on hospitals that began in America and how they got to be what they are today. Today people think of hospitals to be so crucial in their lives that they (including myself) cannot imagine what life would be like if we did not have the option of taking our children to the Emergency Room after they had broken their arm in an unfortunate accident with a bicycle. In the past however, the idea of a hospital was often viewed as unwanted and unnecessary for the overall good of the people. During the early establishment of America there were few hospitals around. Those that were around were mainly used as places to house those who were homeless and needed help and to keep those...
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...metrics to evaluate and compare how well the privately and publicly operated prisons provide services, the structure and form of oversight and accountability to insure punishment is just and fair, and the measurement of cost and efficiency. To be sure, many of these issues are crucial even in the absence of a privatization debate. However, because there are impassioned proponents and opponents on both sides of the issue, the prison privatization literature has provoked both earnest debate and fractious polemic. One might expect that the importance of this topic would have elevated prison privatization research and encouraged the funding of large scale studies. In fact, there are very few studies comparing privately and publicly operated facilities. Segal and Moore (2002) identified about 23 U.S. cost comparison studies and fewer quality studies. Many of those studies were of questionable value. The most recent review, a meta-analysis by Lundahl et. al. (2009) only identified 12 studies of cost and quality meeting their criteria for sound methodology. Even with this limited set of privatization studies, different reviewers have come to opposing conclusions about what the research literature shows. Of the five reviews I cover, three conclude there is no difference between the cost and quality of private and public prisons, and two conclude private prisons are quite a bit cheaper to operate, and produce a similar level of quality. At the end of this...
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...section Vi essay forms Many people use the term “essay” to mean any paper written for a class. In actuality, there are many different types of essays, each of which has a unique purpose, form, and style. We call these different types of essays “modes of discourse,” and they include expository, persuasive, and comparecontrast essays to name just a few. This section of the Guide has a dual purpose. First, various types of essays are described and suggestions are included about how to approach each particular type of writing. Second, the sample essays are good tools for you to see how these different essays look in their final form. These are not templates (no essay can be a carbon copy of another even in form), but they will give you a good idea of what a final piece of writing for each mode of discourse looks like. It would be advantageous to critically analyze the form and content of each sample against the instruction for how to write each type of essay. chapter 21 expository essays Jennifer propp An expository essay explains something using facts rather than opinions. The purpose of this type of essay is to inform an audience about a subject. It is not intended to persuade or present an argument of any kind. Writing this type of essay is a good way to learn about all the different perspectives on a topic. Many students use the expository essay to explore a variety of topics, and do so in a wide range of formats, including “process” and “definition”...
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........................................ 3 2. Political Program and Positions ................................................................................................... 4 Barak Obama ............................................................................................................................... 4 Economic policy ....................................................................................................................... 4 Health Care .............................................................................................................................. 4 Foreign policy .......................................................................................................................... 4 Mitt Romney ................................................................................................................................ 5 Economic policy ....................................................................................................................... 5 Health Care .............................................................................................................................. 5 Foreign Policy .......................................................................................................................... 5 3. Fundraising and Spending ........................................................................................................... 6 Overview..............................................
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...the battlefield * Hospitalers – specialized soldiers who at the end of battle returned to the outposts to care for the sick and injured * Army nursing service – organize nurses and hospitals and coordinate supplies for the soldiers during the Civil War * Clara Barton a. Provided care in tents set up close to the fighting b. Did not discriminate c. Establishment of the American Red Cross * Harriet Tubman – helped slaves escape to freedom on the underground railroad * Walt Whitman – a poet * Louisa May Alcott – an author * Dorothea Dix – union’s superintendent of female nurses during the Civil War B. Nurses fighting diseases * Florence Nightingale d. Epidemiology – the study of the distribution and origins of disease e. Air, light, nutrition, and adequate ventilation and space assist the patient to recuperate * Lillian Wald & Mary Brewster f. Founded the Henry Street Settlement in NY to improve the health and social conditions of poor immigrants g. Improve health and prevent illness by promoting safe drinking water, adequate sewage facilities, and proper sanitation Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) * “Lady of the Lamp” * Walked through the camp at night providing care to the sick and wounded during the Crimean War * Major contributions: * Establishment of nursing as a distinct...
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...WORKING P A P E R Demographic Trends, Policy Influences, and Economic Effects in China and India Through 2025 JULIE DAVANZO, HARUN DOGO, AND CLIFFORD A. GRAMMICH WR-849 April 2011 This product is part of the RAND National Security Research Division working paper series. RAND working papers are intended to share researchers’ latest findings and to solicit informal peer review. They have been approved for circulation by RAND National Security Research Division but have not been formally edited or peer reviewed. Unless otherwise indicated, working papers can be quoted and cited without permission of the author, provided the source is clearly referred to as a working paper. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. is a registered trademark. Preface In this paper we compare the recent and likely future demographic situations in China and India and their implications. This is a background paper for the chapter, “Population Trends in China and India: Demographic Dividend or Demographic Drag?. in the RAND report, China And India, 2025: A Comparative Assessment, MG-1009OSD, by Charles Wolf, Jr., Siddhartha Dalal, Julie DaVanzo, Eric V. Larson, Alisher R. Akhmedjonov, Harun Dogo, Meilinda Huang, and Silvia Montoya, and contains some of material referenced therein. The RAND report was done under the sponsorship of the Office of Net Assessment with the objective of understanding how China and India will compare to one...
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