This is the companion to the comprehensive review of national health systems presented in Volume I. In that volume, the author analyzed the resources, organization, financing, management, and delivery of health services in 68 countries at diverse levels of economic development and political ideology. In Volume II, the principal issues in health systems across countries are carefully examined. These issues are categorized according to the several components by which national health systems may be analyzed. In the general field of health resources, Roemer discusses physicians and traditional healers, nurses, pharmacists, auxiliary health personnel, the background and distribution of hospitals and health centers, and the production and consumption of drugs. The sections of this important work elucidate the various issues surrounding the world's health systems. The scope and functions of Ministries of Health and social security programs for health care in different types of health systems are reviewed. The book recognizes the contributions of voluntary health agencies, as well as the characteristics of major services in the private sector of national economies. The serious implications of private profit in health systems and the benefits and difficulties of private/public sector relationships are also examined. This authoritative volume presents a global analyzation of economic and management support for national health systems including a discussion of world-wide expenditures according to the source of financing and the purposes for which money is spent. Special attention is also given to experiences in the delivery of health service including ambulatory and primary care, and equivalent analyses are made of world-wide delivery of hospital services, regionalization, and long-term care. Volume II concludes with a review of international health activities from the 19th century International Sanitary Conferences up to the present era of the World Health Organization. This critical work probes the political factors involved in this evolution. The last chapter summarizes major social trends in society, along with major trends in the health system components: resources, programs, economic support, management, and delivery of services.
If national health insurance becomes a reality, what options should be considered for the coverage of prescription drugs? The authors—whose Pills, Profits, and Politics has had a dramatic effect on physicians, pharmacists, patients, and the drug industry as well as on federal and state legislators—insist that the major objective must be the best possible health care. But holding down costs to patients and taxpayers must also be a goal. To complicate matters further, the advantage of each likely option—including price controls, the use of formularies, drug utilization review, patient cost-sharing, and the use of low-cost, generic-name products—is offset by a disadvantage, even a danger. If drug prices are slashed too much, the industry will lose many of its incentives to develop better drugs for the future. Particular attention is focused on the so-called drug lag—the lengthy delays in licensing of new drugs, even after they have been used with apparently good results in other countries. Pills and the Public Purse also addresses the seldom-appreciated fact that investing tax dollars in needed drugs may save taxpayers in the long run by minimizing unnecessary physician visits and hospitalization. Pills and the Public Purse challenges Congress and such agencies as the Food and Drug Administration and the Health Care Financing Administration to enact policies that put the interests of the public before those of government, industry, physicians, and pharmacists. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.
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