America's Uninsured Crisis

America's Uninsured Crisis PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309140889
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
When policy makers and researchers consider potential solutions to the crisis of uninsurance in the United States, the question of whether health insurance matters to health is often an issue. This question is far more than an academic concern. It is crucial that U.S. health care policy be informed with current and valid evidence on the consequences of uninsurance for health care and health outcomes, especially for the 45.7 million individuals without health insurance. From 2001 to 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued six reports, which concluded that being uninsured was hazardous to people's health and recommended that the nation move quickly to implement a strategy to achieve health insurance coverage for all. The goal of this book is to inform the health reform policy debateâ€"in 2009â€"with an up-to-date assessment of the research evidence. This report addresses three key questions: What are the dynamics driving downward trends in health insurance coverage? Is being uninsured harmful to the health of children and adults? Are insured people affected by high rates of uninsurance in their communities?

America's Uninsured Crisis

America's Uninsured Crisis PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309140889
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description
When policy makers and researchers consider potential solutions to the crisis of uninsurance in the United States, the question of whether health insurance matters to health is often an issue. This question is far more than an academic concern. It is crucial that U.S. health care policy be informed with current and valid evidence on the consequences of uninsurance for health care and health outcomes, especially for the 45.7 million individuals without health insurance. From 2001 to 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued six reports, which concluded that being uninsured was hazardous to people's health and recommended that the nation move quickly to implement a strategy to achieve health insurance coverage for all. The goal of this book is to inform the health reform policy debateâ€"in 2009â€"with an up-to-date assessment of the research evidence. This report addresses three key questions: What are the dynamics driving downward trends in health insurance coverage? Is being uninsured harmful to the health of children and adults? Are insured people affected by high rates of uninsurance in their communities?

Insuring America's Health

Insuring America's Health PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309091055
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
According to the Census Bureau, in 2003 more than 43 million Americans lacked health insurance. Being uninsured is associated with a range of adverse health, social, and economic consequences for individuals and their families, for the health care systems in their communities, and for the nation as a whole. This report is the sixth and final report in a series by the Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance, intended to synthesize what is known about these consequences and communicate the extent and urgency of the issue to the public. Insuring America's Health recommends principles related to universality, continuity of coverage, affordability to individuals and society, and quality of care to guide health insurance reform. These principles are based on the evidence reviewed in the committee's previous five reports and on new analyses of past and present federal, state, and local efforts to reduce uninsurance. The report also demonstrates how those principles can be used to assess policy options. The committee does not recommend a specific coverage strategy. Rather, it shows how various approaches could extend coverage and achieve certain of the committee's principles.

Care Without Coverage

Care Without Coverage PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Solving the American Health Care Crisis

Solving the American Health Care Crisis PDF Author: Malhotra Umang Malhotra
Publisher: iUniverse Inc.
ISBN: 1440180199
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Surprisingly, America ranks 54 worldwide in access to health care. Solving the American Health Care Crisis lays open the issues, challenges Americans to think for themselves, and reveals how learning from other countries can help to create, truly, the best health care system in the world. In the span of his career as an international businessman and entrepreneur, Umang Malhotra has voyaged through nearly eighty countries and he shares his vast knowledge of health care in other nations. In a commonsense book aimed at the public and policymakers alike, he provides a fresh, unbiased view of the flaws inherent in the American health care system while examining how other affluent nations manage to provide quality universal health care coverage for half the cost per person. After the death of his best friend, who did not have American health insurance when he fell ill while visiting the United States, Malhotra wondered why the richest country in the world treats health care as a privilege, rather than as a basic right, unlike other industrialized nations. He reveals how other countries approach health care while examining the critical economic, social, and political issues that America must resolve, in the belief that we can only make progress when the average person understands, fully, the real issues behind the crisis. The book presents compelling solutions for an affordable, high quality, and accessible, universal system while answering key questions and asking some very pointed ones in return. The reader is left well armed to think the issue through.

America's Health Care Crisis Solved

America's Health Care Crisis Solved PDF Author: J. Patrick Rooney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 047033441X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
America’s Health Care Crisis Solved highlights the major pitfalls of our current health care system and shows why, without changes, health care costs will soon demolish the American economy as well as the opportunity to receive quality care. However, contrary to the increasingly popular idea of a government health plan, the alternative presented by authors J. Patrick Rooney and Dan Perrin brings the self-interest of you, the American consumer, into the equation.

Coverage Matters

Coverage Matters PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309076099
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Roughly 40 million Americans have no health insurance, private or public, and the number has grown steadily over the past 25 years. Who are these children, women, and men, and why do they lack coverage for essential health care services? How does the system of insurance coverage in the U.S. operate, and where does it fail? The first of six Institute of Medicine reports that will examine in detail the consequences of having a large uninsured population, Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care, explores the myths and realities of who is uninsured, identifies social, economic, and policy factors that contribute to the situation, and describes the likelihood faced by members of various population groups of being uninsured. It serves as a guide to a broad range of issues related to the lack of insurance coverage in America and provides background data of use to policy makers and health services researchers.

Critical

Critical PDF Author: Thomas Daschle
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312383015
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Former Senate Majority Leader Daschle presents this hard-hitting policy guideto reforming Americas broken healthcare system.

A Shared Destiny

A Shared Destiny PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309087260
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
A Shared Destiny is the fourth in a series of six reports on the problems of uninsurance in the United States. This report examines how the quality, quantity, and scope of community health services can be adversely affected by having a large or growing uninsured population. It explores the overlapping financial and organizational basis of health services delivery to uninsured and insured populations, the effects of community uninsurance on access to health care locally, and the potential spillover effects on a community's economy and the health of its citizens. The committee believes it is both mistaken and dangerous to assume that the persistence of a sizable uninsured population in the United States harms only those who are uninsured.

Access to Health Care in America

Access to Health Care in America PDF Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309047420
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Americans are accustomed to anecdotal evidence of the health care crisis. Yet, personal or local stories do not provide a comprehensive nationwide picture of our access to health care. Now, this book offers the long-awaited health equivalent of national economic indicators. This useful volume defines a set of national objectives and identifies indicatorsâ€"measures of utilization and outcomeâ€"that can "sense" when and where problems occur in accessing specific health care services. Using the indicators, the committee presents significant conclusions about the situation today, examining the relationships between access to care and factors such as income, race, ethnic origin, and location. The committee offers recommendations to federal, state, and local agencies for improving data collection and monitoring. This highly readable and well-organized volume will be essential for policymakers, public health officials, insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and nurses, and interested individuals.

Crisis In U.S. Health Care

Crisis In U.S. Health Care PDF Author: John Geyman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781938218224
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
The problems of U.S. health care are of intense public interest today. The debate over where to go next to rein in costs and improve access to quality health care has become bitterly partisan, with distorted rhetoric largely uninformed by history, evidence, or health policy science. Based on present trends, our expensive dysfunctional system threatens patients, families, the government, and taxpayers with future bankruptcy. This book takes a 60-year view of our health care system, from 1956 to 2016, from the perspective of a family physician who has lived through these years as a practitioner in two rural communities, a professor and administrator of family medicine in medical schools, a journal editor for 30 years, and a researcher and writer on health care for more than four decades. There has been a complete transformation of health care and medical practice over that time from physicians in solo or small group practice and community hospitals to an enormous, largely corporatized industry that has left behind many of the traditions of personalized health care. This is an objective, non-partisan look at the major trends changing U.S. health care over these years, and points out some of the highs--and lows--of these changes, which may surprise some readers. It also compares the three basic alternatives for health care reform currently being debated.