Health Care and Reform in Industrialized Countries

5-21-97
University Park, Pa. -- Penn State Press recently published a book that provides an informed look at the health care systems of 10 industrialized nations: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

All democratic and affluent, with well-educated populations and high health standards, these countries have interacted with each other extensively over the years in commercial, cultural, and scientific affairs. The contributors, all resident health care experts, address here the ways in which their countries influence, and are influenced by, the health care systems of other countries studied here. They also examine their common problems-not least the increasing pressure to serve aging populations while maintaining economic balance.

The book is edited by Marshall W. Raffel, professor emeritus of health policy and administration in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development.

Each covering a different country, the chapters detail the various components of national health care systems: the role, choices, and financial responsibility of the patient, physician training and influence, the organization and financing of hospitals, provisions for care of the elderly and mentally ill, public health services, the role of private health insurance, national health expenditures and efforts at cost containment, and the role of government. Each chapter is supplemented with a wealth of statistical data relevant to the respective country.

Contributors are Peggy Leatt, A. Paul Williams, Allan Krasnik, Signild Vallgårda, Wolfgang Greiner, J.-Matthias v.d.Schulenburg, Marie-Pascal Pomey, Jean-Pierre Poullier, Toshitaka Nakahara, J. A. M. (Hans) Maarse, Claudia Scott, Stefan Håkansson, Sara Nordling, Peter R. Hatcher, Marshall W. Raffel, and Norma K. Raffel.

Marshall W. Raffel has acted as a consultant on health care planning and reform at both the state level and the federal level in the United States and in Asia and Eastern Europe. He is co-author (with Norma K. Raffel) of "The U.S. Health Care System: Origins and Functions and Comparative Health Systems: Descriptive Analyses of Fourteen National Health Systems" (Penn State, 1984).

Established in 1956, Penn State Press is a university press specializing in art history, Black studies, general interest, history, literary studies, philosophy, political science, religion, regional studies, sociology and women's studies.

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EDITORS: For a media copy of the book, or to interview the authors, contact Alison Reeves, at (814) 865-1327 (phone); (814) 863-1408 (fax); or at adr3@psu.edu by e-mail.

The Penn State Press Home Page is at http://www.personal.psu.edu/dept/psupress