SO WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

 

 

Student ID: _____________________________

 

 

Use the space provided to answer any 5 of the following 6 questions. Mark, with an X, the question omitted. Read questions carefully. Good answers (a) respond to the question, (b) show insight, (c) are concise and readable, and yet (d) provide pertinent specifics.

 

1. What conflicts are there in the evolving role of the physician, considering the "principles" (i.e. of Beauchamp and Childress) commonly considered in bioethics? You might include, in no more than a sentence, DRGs and RBRVS as an illustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Considering the Wilson typology of policy making (distribution or concentration of benefits and of costs), how might we expect payers to play political roles in addressing health care costs and quality? Why?


3. Define and use a sentence to explain the significance of:

a. CDC

 

 

 

b. HMOs

 

 

 

c. Cost Effectiveness

 

 

 

d. A “public good,” as the term is used in economics

 

 

 

e. Confidence interval, as the term is used in statistics

 

 

 

 

4. One of the activities in the Jones outline is implementation, including discretion involving perspective of agency and of professionals chosen, the adequacy of resources (capacity), and how many branches and levels are involved. From four of the books discussed in class, draw strong examples of the significance of such discretion.

Books included •Complications (Atul Gawande); •Ashes to Ashes (Richard Kluger); •A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr); •A Midwife's Tale (Laurel Ulrich); •Medicine & Culture (Lynn Payer); •Educated Guesses (Louise Russell) •Smoking and Politics (Fritchler & Hoefler); •The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Anne Fadiman); •Pathologies of Power (Paul Farmer); and •The 9/11 Commission Report.


5. Use any two proposed or tried “reforms” or aspects of the present health care system (Oregon, Massachusetts, Medicare Modernization Act, single payer, etc.) to illustrate at least two ways the health care system may or may not be expected to behave as a true market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Use a current aspect of health care quality or of the quality of health to illustrate the inevitability of "muddling through" and of how to more usefully “muddle”. You might include, in no more than a sentence, decision trees and expected value as an illustration.