U.S. Health System & Policy

This course is an introduction to contemporary issues in U.S. healthcare financing and delivery, providing historical perspective on emergence of these issues and implications for the future. These policy issues include approaches for improving population health and eliminating health inequalities, expanding affordable health coverage, improving quality of care provided and the provision of services for behavioral health, chronic conditions and long-term care needs. We will consider major public programs—Medicare and Medicaid—as well as private and community-based initiatives and how structural racism is embedded in these programs as currently designed. Through the application of diverse and often conflicting perspectives, we will critique private and public sector approaches (or more often the combination of the two) to improve health care access and quality, and lower health care costs according to the values most people care about (though to varying degrees): equity, efficiency, efficacy (quality & value), choice, democratic inclusion and voice.