The art of balance in health policy : maintaining Japan's low-cost, egalitarian system / John Creighton Campbell, Naoki Ikegami.
Material type: TextPublisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1998Description: 1 online resource (xi, 227 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)Content type:- text
- computer
- online resource
- 9780511984044 (ebook)
- 362.1/0952 21
- RA410.55.J3 C35 1998
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Low health care spending in Japan -- Actors, arenas, and agendas in health policy making -- Health care providers -- The egalitarian health insurance system -- The macropolicy of cost containment -- The micropolicy of cost containment -- The quality problem.
Compared to the rest of the world, Japan has a healthy population but pays relatively little for medical care. This book analyses how the health care works, and how it came into being. Taking a comparative perspective, the authors describe the politics of health care, the variety of providers, the universal health insurance system, and how the fee-schedule constrains costs at both the macro and micro levels. Special attention is paid to issues of quality and to the difficult problems of assuring adequate high-tech medicine and long-term care. Although the authors discuss the drawbacks to Japan's stringent cost-containment policy, they also keep in mind the possible implications for reform in the United States. Egalitarian values and a concern for 'balance' among constituents, the authors argue, are essential for cost containment as well as for access to health care.
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