Health Policy Reform in America

This completely new edition of a best-selling text for practitioners and policy analysts alike tracks the increasingly important role of the states in U.S. health care policy reform and the experience that policy-innovating states have accumulated to date. The first part of the book deals with health issues common to all states. Chapter 1 shows how the states have, by default and design, become the "laboratories" of health care reform and reviews the challenges faced by the states in dealing with rising health care costs, declining insurance coverage of the population (about 35 million uninsured), and the transfer of programmatic responsibility in health policy from the federal to the state level. Chapters 2-5 deal with the states' policy competence and capacity and their role in managed care; health insurance market reform; and Medicaid. Chapters 6-10 examine the successes and failures of notable health policy reform efforts in Hawaii, Minnesota, Oregon, Vermont, and Kansas.

"Health care workers, policy-makers, social scientists, and the general public have much to gain by reading this book". -- Choice (on the first edition)