Instructor Resources: Test bank, PowerPoint slides, a PDF of the book’s exhibits, an instructor manual and additional exam questions for each chapter, and a transition guide to the new edition. 

 

Health Policy Issues: An Economic Perspective uses concise, topical chapters to provide a comprehensive overview of the forces influencing healthcare financing and delivery. Prescription drug coverage, concerns over health equity, and the rise in healthcare costs are just a few of the timely and vital issues that are discussed through the lens of economics. Each chapter includes a clear explanation of the topic, diagrams and charts to aid comprehension, and a summary and discussion questions at the end.

This eighth edition has been revised to reflect the most recent research and data, as well as changes in laws and government policies. A new chapter compares the US health system to those of five European countries. Features of all six systems are correlated to their countries’ medical performance. The tradeoffs that governments and individuals make when spending on healthcare are also discussed.

 

New and updated content includes coverage of:

• Current Medicare proposals
• COVID’s effect on medical services delivery
• Medicaid effectiveness
• Strategies for addressing the physician shortage
• Affordable Care Act updates 

This book is an ideal text for health policy courses in nursing, medicine, health administration, and public-health programs. It covers a much broader range of topics than other titles and allows instructors the flexibility to choose which specific subjects to cover within a course. The text is written from a market economist’s perspective, and no prior knowledge of economics is required.

 

Health Policy Issues shows how the economic approach to healthcare policy is important not only for understanding the structural and dynamic forces pressing for change in healthcare but also for explaining why the health system has evolved to its current state.