The Impact of Health Reform on Health System Spending

Examines the 2010 healthcare reform law's impact on national health expenditures, through new coverage, savings in public programs, insurance exchanges, and health system modernization; the federal budget; Medicare; and premiums for private coverage

Health Care System Reform in China: Issues, Challenges and Options

This paper examines health care reform in urban and rural China. Before health care reform, Chinese health service facilities were run entirely by the state and basically they performed a social welfare function. This health care system greatly improved the population health conditions but many problems started to emerge in 1980s when the economic reform started. Since then, the government has been struggling to maintain a balance between meeting people¡¯s health care needs and develop the health care "industry". Problems and their contribution factors in organization, financing and performance of the health care reform are examined and analyzed. In terms of organization, decentralization of the decision making power in health sector and marketization of the medical establishments constitutes the main organizational changes in the health care reform. This organizational reform of health sector as an imposed institution change, encounters lots of resistance in the process of implementation. A tremendous amount of conflictions arises because of the commercialization of health sector that used to perform social welfare function. In terms of financing, share of organized financing (government and social fund) in the total health expenditure declined dramatically since the reform. In urban China, Health care insurance faced tough going on universal access. In rural China, there are lots of problems in implementing new cooperative health system partly because of its imperfect design. In terms of performance, data shows that there is growing inequity in health status between rural and urban in the past 15 years. Inefficiencies also exists in both resource allocation and service delivery. Several options are analyzed for organizational reform and health care financing. The report recommends that the aims of the future reform policy that government would adopt should be to improve the population health status instead of generating profit for institutions or industry. The social welfare function of health care system should be reinforced and at the same time managed competition in the health care market should be encouraged. In health care financing in urban area, several directions of broadening risk pooling are discussed. In rural health care financing, the designing of new cooperative health care system is analyzed. Rural financing should be more flexible in order to attract more people to join the cooperative medical system. It is recommended that Chinese government should increase funding for public health programs and subsidize health services for the disadvantaged groups.

Health Care Opinion Leaders' Views on Health Care Delivery System Reform

Presents findings of a survey of experts on reforming delivery systems -- organized delivery systems, patient-centered medical homes, and retail clinics -- and recommended policy strategies, such as improving the primary care system

A duration analysis of CONALEP (Mexico's National Technical Professional School)

Mexico's National Technical Professional School (Colegio Nacional de Educaci?n Profesional T?cnica, CONALEP) is the largest technical education system in the country. CONALEP serves low-income students at the upper-secondary school level in Mexico. Using graduate tracer surveys from CONALEP, the author analyzes the impact of modular courses and reform programs implemented by CONALEP in 1991-92 on CONALEP graduates'labor market outcomes. Results indicate that graduates from the pre-reform program had to search longer for a job compared with those of the post-reform program. Graduates from the post-reform program have 45 percent higher probability of finding a job than those from the pre-reform program. However, the pre-reform program cohorts earned higher hourly wages than those from the post-reform program.Girls'Education,Teaching and Learning,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Public Health Promotion,Primary Education,Teaching and Learning,Gender and Education,Primary Education,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Girls Education

An Analysis of Current Healthcare Proposals: Obama and McCain

The healthcare system of the U.S. is broken. The next opportunity for overwhelming healthcare system reform will be when the next president takes office. This paper analyzes the 2008 presidential election candidates McCain and Obama healthcare proposals through a look at key players in the current healthcare system (government, pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies) and the affects of implementing such a plan. The presidential plans are presented side by side. Projected outcomes of the changes offered by Obama will be an increased role of the government and decreased power of the health insurance companies while increasing coverage. The McCain plan would have more choice for individuals with a transparent system, and less governmental bureaucracy while embracing the free market competition of the health insurance industry. There will be obstacles and/or resistance to any reform passed by the presidential elect, no matter which man had won

Towards universal health coverage: lessons from 10 years of healthcare reform in China.

Universal health coverage (UHC) is driving the global health agenda. Many countries have embarked on national policy reforms towards this goal, including China. In 2009, the Chinese government launched a new round of healthcare reform towards UHC, aiming to provide universal coverage of basic healthcare by the end of 2020. The year of 2019 marks the 10th anniversary of China's most recent healthcare reform. Sharing China's experience is especially timely for other countries pursuing reforms to achieve UHC. This study describes the social, economic and health context in China, and then reviews the overall progress of healthcare reform (1949 to present), with a focus on the most recent (2009) round of healthcare reform. The study comprehensively analyses key reform initiatives and major achievements according to four aspects: health insurance system, drug supply and security system, medical service system and public health service system. Lessons learnt from China may have important implications for other nations, including continued political support, increased health financing and a strong primary healthcare system as basis

Tennesseans Focused on How to Keep What Works, Fix What's Broken in Healthcare System

I have talked with providers, patients, healthcare administrators, seniors, veterans, small business owners, civic leaders and other families, those with health coverage and those without, about how our healthcare system works today.John Tanner, health care reform, healthcare reform, healthcare, health care, Tennessee, 8th District, insurance, blue dogs, blue dog democrats

Comments on Enthoven’s “The U.S. Experience with Managed Care and Managed Competition”

This session will provide an overview of the U.S. health care system with an emphasis on trends observed since the reforms of the early 1990s. ; How has the health care system adjusted to the introduction of market-oriented medicine? And what have been the consequences for access to care, health care costs (public and private), and the quality of care over the past decade? How does the U.S. health care system measure up in international comparisons, for instance? Does managed care work as its advocates expected or have inappropriate consumer and provider incentives undermined this experiment? What are the implications for reform?Health care reform

The SWOT Analysis of the Romanian Health Care System

The complexity of the problem the national health care program confronts with and which must be solved through the measures of the respective reform lead to a SWOT analysis, particularly for this reform. The strong points consists of the voting And coming into force of the Law concerning the health care reform, the large number of services suppliers, for every type of medical assistance, the existence of medical excellence centres leading to an afflux of patients, regardless of the area where they live. The implementation of the hospital financing system - DRG – financing based on solved case – represented a process approved through a MH project that has benefited from the financial support of the European Union, through PHARE 2003 program. The Romanian health care system consists of the following weak points: - The necessity to increase the financing level of the Romanian health care system; - The lack of a unique integrated information system; - The lack of real self-sufficiency; - The high rate of infectious and chronic diseases; - The rate of problems related to the lack of knowledge of related servicesindicators system, SWOT analysis, strong points, weak points, financing health care, health care expenditure.

Management of RH Services in India and the Need for Health System Reform

For the last ten to fifteen years, a comprehensive agenda of health sector reforms and health systems development has engulfed the health system in many countries in structural and organisational changes. Experience with varying degrees and types of reforms have now been reported from many countries. In our paper, we begin by describing some important issues facing the management of RH programs in India, based on our research done in a few states over the last five years. The failures in the management of RH services are complex and multi-factorial, and cannot all be addressed through health system reform. It is therefore necessary to identify which failures in service are attributable to causes, which could be removed or changed by reform in the health system. In our paper, we identify those failures and causes which could be corrected through health system reforms and propose certain concrete steps to expedite the reforms in the health system to enable the improvement of RH services in India.