No abstract

The irony was so striking that it could not be lost on anyone. Sitting before us was a soon-to-be-minted Ph.D. candidate whom we all liked tremendously, and who had an incredibly strong academic record, both in research and teaching. Yet, as our panel read his letter of application and CV, which were displayed on an overhead projector, and as we discussed them in progressively greater detail and honesty, we found several aspects of his materials off-putting. Why did he phrase something THIS way, another THAT way, we asked him? Sometimes his decisions were driven by a concern he need not have had; other times he was being advised by his graduate department. We ended by agreeing tat although he SHOULD have been given a job interview, our hypothetical search process might have passed him over for inclusion on our short list.

No abstract

Although the nation failed during the past decade to enact large-scale, structural change in government health policy, it has seen health care in the private sector remodeled dramatically during the same period. In this article I argue that a new round of equally significant changes is quite possible, this time at the hands of the national government. More specifically, I argue that for a variety of reasons, both enduring and more recently born, support for the private sector and the market in health care is relatively weak: that given likely trends in costs, demographics, and inequalities, it is likely to get even weaker; and that in the potential coming crisis of the health care system. there will be a real opportunity for seizing the agenda and winning policy battles on the part of would-be reformers pushing large-scale, public sector-oriented changes that go well beyond the recent reform efforts directed at managed care and HMOs.

No abstract