forest and colleagues have persuasively made the case that policy capacity is a fundamental prerequisite to health reform. they offer a comprehensive life-cycle definition of policy capacity and stress that it involves much more than problem identification and option development. i would like to offer a canadian perspective. if we define health reform as re-orienting the health system from acut...

Series Editor's Note: This article provides a comprehensive look at many of the health policy issues related to children 3health insurance. It was originally written in April 1997 when the outcome of foderallegislation was unclear. Even though Congress has recently decided to increase health insurance coverage for children, however, the issues presented in this paper remain critically important...

OBJECTIVES In national and local discussions of health care reform, there is disagreement about whether a national health insurance plan should be mandatory or voluntary. This study describes characteristics of low- income people who were more likely or less likely to be covered by a voluntary plan. METHODS Survey data were available from an evaluation of Washington State's Basic Health Plan,...

~| y electing Democrat Harris Wofford B to the Senate over former Attorney General Richard T h o r n b u r g h in November 1991, the voters of Pennsylvania proved that healthcare reform is a politically salient issue. Policy analysts, amazed that Wofford's healthcare reform message was a key factor in his election, have debated during the past few months whether this was a fluke or the precurso...

BACKGROUND In the prenatal period, women can have sustained contact with nurses and other clinicians, forming relationships that are likely to be health enhancing for both the woman and her unborn child. Yet, first trimester care use in Oregon dropped noticeably over the past decade. In comparison with Washington state, Oregon has not shown substantial recovery. OBJECTIVE The aim of this stud...

f healthcare reform is not a political activity, it's going to be an economic o n e , " predic ted James Bentley, American Hospi ta l Association (AHA) senior vice president for policy, in a conversation. A look at recent hospital trends and an analysis from Wall Street bears this out. As competitive economic pressures increase in the healthcare system, in large part fueled by the growth of man...

OBJECTIVE To identify changes in nursing practice and the nursing-practice environment that have occurred with implementation of health sector reform in five countries in the Americas. METHODS An exploratory study of selected settings in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States of America was conducted between 1997 and 1999 to collect narrative data from 125 professional nur...