ISSUE: The Affordable Care Act has significantly increased health insurance coverage and access to care among U.S. adults nationwide. However, the law gives states flexibility in implementing certain provisions, leading to wide variations between states in consumers’ experiences. GOAL: To examine the differences in insurance coverage, access to care, and medical bill problems in the four larges...

China has gone through a comprehensive health care insurance reform since 2003 and achieved universal health insurance coverage in 2011. The new health care insurance system provides China with a huge opportunity for the development of health care and medical research when its rich medical resources are fully unfolded. In this study, we review the Chinese health care system and its implication ...

T HERE are many differences of opinion about the extent and value of voluntary insurance against sickness. The conflicts mainly concern different estimates of the number of insurance policies in force, the number of different individuals insured, the comprehensiveness of their insurance contracts, and the net value of their insurance protection. In contrast to the difficulties of obtaining undu...

STUDY OBJECTIVES Health care utilization has progressively increased, especially among Medical Aid beneficiaries in South Korea. The Medical Aid classifies beneficiaries into two categories, type 1 and 2, on the basis of being incapable (those under 18 or over 65 years of age, or disabled) or capable of working, respectively. Medical Aid has a high possibility for health care utilization due to...

Health services covering needs of pregnantwomen, newborns, infants, and preschool and school-age children in Serbia, are provided according to the plan of the compulsory health insurance (1). Such insurance premiums include the implementation of organized screening in health institutions of secondary and tertiary levels (prenatal examinations, mandatory screening for phenylketonuria and hypothy...

Driving buses in London is an occupation in which the standards of fitness have been defined and in which the frequency of, and clinical reason for, exclusion from the occupation have been recorded. The criteria of fitness to drive a passenger vehicle are physical capability to handle controls (including good eyesight) and absence of conditions liable to cause sudden collapse or excessive fatig...

Recent reports of medical students performing pelvic exams for training purposes on anesthetized women without their consent have produced a firestorm of controversy and calls for greater regulation. Despite periodic efforts to reform the practice, such unauthorized practice is neither a recent phenomenon nor unique to the United States. Two small-scale studies published in 2003 hint at the ext...