Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone: Why American Employers Underinvest in Health
It has become increasingly common to hear a business case for wellness that emphasizes the benefits of having a healthy workforce. This is essentially the same as the case for employers to train their workers; training a worker and investing in the health of the worker both represent a productivity-enhancing investment in the worker by the firm. The problem is that the employer frequently fails to capture the returns on the investment. A healthier or better-skilled worker can command a higher wage and threaten to leave the firm making the investment. This risk of failing to capture the gains from investment produces underi...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - October 10, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Greer, S. L., Fannion, R. D. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Critical Perspectives on Wellness
Workplace wellness programs are written into law as exceptions to otherwise protective antidiscrimination provisions, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands employers' ability to treat workers differently based on their health. Rather than assume that wellness programs promote health and save money, here I approach them as legally sanctioned discrimination. What exactly wellness discrimination might look like in practice across many contexts is an open question, but there is good reason to be wary of the power of wellness to create and reproduce hierarchy, to promote homogeneity, narrow-mindedness, and ...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - October 10, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Kirkland, A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

What Is Wellness Now?
(Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law)
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - October 10, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Kirkland, A. Tags: Introduction Source Type: research

Editor's Note
(Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law)
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - October 10, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Grogan, C. M. Tags: Editor ' s Note Source Type: research

Medicaid Politics: Federalism, Policy Durability, and Health Reform
(Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law)
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Miller, E. A. Tags: Books Source Type: research

Why the Oregon CCO Experiment Could Founder
The most recent Oregon Medicaid experiment is the boldest attempt yet to limit health care spending. Oregon's approach using a Medicaid waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services utilizes global payments with two-sided risk at two levels — coordinated care organizations (CCOs) and the state. Equally important, the Oregon experiment mandates coverage of medical, behavioral, and dental health care using flexible coverage, with the locus of delivery innovation focused at the individual CCO level and with financial consequences for quality-of-care metrics. But insightful design alone is insufficient to ov...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Stecker, E. C. Tags: Point-Counterpoint Source Type: research

Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations: A Promising and Practical Reform Model
Continuing its path of Medicaid program innovation, Oregon recently embarked on a major reform that gives regional coordinated care organizations (CCOs) global budgets and accountability for the physical, behavioral, and dental care of the state's Medicaid beneficiaries (Howard et al. 2014). There are some who maintain that the state's bold reform initiative is overly aggressive in scope and unrealistically optimistic in schedule and may prove to be a costly debacle to the state of Oregon. We argue that the Oregon CCO model is not only bold in its aims and timetable but also realistically achievable. (Source: Journal of He...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Howard, S. W., Bernell, S. L., Yoon, J., Luck, J. Tags: Point-Counterpoint Source Type: research

Oregon's Coordinated Care Organizations
(Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law)
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Pollack, H. A. Tags: Point-Counterpoint Source Type: research

Advocating Self-Advocacy: Board Membership in a Statewide Mental Health Consumer Organization
Until 2008 Ohio Advocates for Mental Health was a statewide mental health advocacy organization run by mental health consumers and supportive of consumer-run organizations around the state. The author's tenure on the board entailed repeated engagement with questions of identity — self-identity, peer support through personal identification, and negotiation of public identities with provider groups and the state agency. These are fundamental to defining and legitimating the claims of mentally ill people not just for health care resources but for full participation as citizens in the public sphere. (Source: Journal of H...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Tanenbaum, S. J. Tags: Active Voice Source Type: research

Early Experience of a Safety Net Provider Reorganizing into an Accountable Care Organization
Although safety net providers will benefit from health insurance expansions under the Affordable Care Act, they also face significant challenges in the postreform environment. Some have embraced the concept of the accountable care organization to help improve quality and efficiency while addressing financial shortfalls. The experience of Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) in Massachusetts, where health care reform began six years ago, provides insight into the opportunities and challenges of this approach in the safety net. CHA's strategies include care redesign, financial realignment, workforce transformation, and developmen...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Hacker, K., Santos, P., Thompson, D., Stout, S. S., Bearse, A., Mechanic, R. E. Tags: Report on Health Reform Implementation Source Type: research

The California Health Policy Research Program -- Supporting Policy Making through Evidence and Responsive Research
This article explores the creation, design, and execution of a university-based collaboration to provide responsive research and evidence to a group of diverse health care, labor, and consumer stakeholders through convening a funded series of deliberative meetings, research briefs, peer-reviewed journal articles, ad hoc data analyses, and policy analyses. Funded by the California Endowment, the California Health Policy Research Program was created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The collaboration not only allow...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Roby, D. H., Jacobs, K., Kertzner, A. E., Kominski, G. F. Tags: Report on Health Reform Implementation Source Type: research

Health Care Privatization in Latin America: Comparing Divergent Privatization Approaches in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico
In this study we characterize health care privatization in Latin America and identify the main factors that promoted and hindered privatization by comparing the experiences of these countries. We argue that policy elites took advantage of specific policy environments and the diffusion of privatization policies to promote health care privatization while political mobilization against privatization, competing policy priorities, weak market and government institutions, and efforts to reach universal health insurance hindered privatization. The privatization approaches of Chile and Colombia were classified as "big-bang," since...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Bustamante, A. V., Mendez, C. A. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

The Importance of Order and Complements: A New Way to Understand the Dutch and German Health Insurance Reforms
This article adds to recent theorizing on gradual institutional change by focusing on how institutional displacement occurs through sequential patterns of change. It argues that under certain conditions, reformist political actors may achieve systemic reform through sequences of incremental reforms. We illustrate our argument through a comparative analysis of systemic health care reforms in two Bismarckian health insurance systems, the Netherlands and Germany. These reforms involved further universalization of health care insurance combined with regulated competition to enhance efficiency. The analyses show that reformist ...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Helderman, J.-K., Stiller, S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

The Effects of Regulation and Litigation on a Large For-Profit Nursing Home Chain
This article examines the effects of state regulation and civil class action litigation on corporate compliance with nurse staffing and quality standards, corporate strategies to manage staffing and quality, and corporate financial status of a large for-profit nursing home chain. A historical case study was used to examine multiple public data sources, focusing on facilities in California from 2003 to 2011 during and after regulatory actions and litigation. The results showed that the state issued numerous deficiencies for violations of the nurse staffing and quality standards with minimal impact on quality compliance with...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Harrington, C., Stockton, J., Hooper, S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research

Life Cycle of Medical Product Rules Issued by the US Food and Drug Administration
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses rulemaking as one of its primary tools to protect the public health and implement laws enacted by Congress and the president. Because of the many effects that these rules have on social welfare and the economy, the FDA and other executive agencies receive input from the executive branch, the public, and in some cases, the courts, during the process of rulemaking. In this article, we examine the life cycle of FDA regulations concerning medical products and review notable features of the rulemaking process. The current system grants substantial opportunities for diverse stakehol...
Source: Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law - September 15, 2014 Category: Health Management Authors: Hwang, T. J., Avorn, J., Kesselheim, A. S. Tags: Articles Source Type: research