Health Services Financing and Policy

Catalog description

Introduction to health policy focusing on health services financing, insurance and other current health policy topics. HPA 510 Health Services Financing and Policy (3) The second in a two-course sequence that introduces graduate students to the organization, financing, and delivery of health services in the US. This course focuses on health services financing and policy. This course will cover policy issues in the federal Medicare program, state Medicaid programs and private health insurance markets, and other important current health care policy issues. The course will also introduce students to the discipline of policy analysis, primarily the economic perspective, but will also include discussions on the political perspective and the policy-making process. The objectives of this course are to help students: 1) Understand the mechanisms by which Americans pay for their health care and become familiar with current health policy issues. The topics covered in this course will serve as a context for key policy issues that will be intensively discussed in a paired research seminar course; 2) Appreciate the policy-making process and the role of political perspectives in the formation and implementation of policy proposals; 3) Understand approaches of policy analysis, which will provide them with an analytic framework for critiquing health policy issues as well as health services research; 4) Develop policy analysis skills.