As countries confront new health care challenges in the 21st century, their health care systems reflect the problems and political settlements of an earlier age. Meeting these new challenges requires reform of existing health care system arrangements while reconciling the goals of equitable access to quality care at an affordable price. This book compares health care reforms in industrialized nations and the Global South to uncover the similarities and differences in their problems and solutions. It examines the struggle over the Affordable Care Act and its alternatives in the United States, major health care reforms in Germany in the new century, and South Africa's efforts to combat AIDS and construct a comprehensive health care system for all. These particular reforms reflect the underlying configuration of politics in each country.

Since the late 1960s, health care in the United States has been described as a system in crisis. No matter their position, those seeking to improve the system have relied on the rhetoric of crisis to build support for their preferred remedies, to the point where the language and imagery of a health care crisis are now deeply embedded in contemporary politics and popular culture. In Cries of Crisis, Robert B. Hackey analyzes media coverage, political speeches, films, and television shows to demonstrate the role that language and symbolism have played in framing the health care debate, shaping policy making, and influencing public perceptions of problems in the health care system. He demonstrates that the idea of crisis now means so many different things to so many different groups that it has ceased to have any shared meaning at all. He argues that the ceaseless talk of “crisis,” without a commonly accepted definition of that term, has actually impeded efforts to diagnose and treat the chronic problems plaguing the American health care system. Instead, he contends, reformers must embrace a new rhetorical strategy that links proposals to improve the system with deeply held American values like equality and fairness.

Product Description: With implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) under way, healthcare leaders are facing new challenges across all fronts, particularly capital funding for healthcare facility projects of any kind. This book takes readers through the logical steps of approaching capital projects in light of the ACA and the new environment where the delivery model must be based on value rather than volume...read more

Product Description: A comprehensive guide to the structure, synergy, and challenges in U.S. health care delivery Introduction to Health Care Services: Foundations and Challenges offers new insights into the most important sectors of the United States' health care industry and the many challenges the future holds...read more

Product Description: The Paradox: Americans are not as healthy as people in dozens of comparable countries that spend 30 percent less on health care, and our medical marketplace overall is plagued by persistent problems of cost, quality, and access. Yet, the world’s best individual health systems are located in the U...read more