PUBPOL 5783 - Comparative Health Care Systems

Fall. 1 credit. Letter grades only.

A. Corbett.

This course is designed to make students familiar with comparative health care system analyses. Students learn about basic methodological tools to analyse and compare different health care systems using the example of the U.S. We learn about a unifying framework that allows us to categorize health care systems and benchmark them against each other.

Outcome 1: Use a unified framework to simplify, analyze, and evaluate health care systems.

Outcome 2: Identify the basic organizational setups of the following health care systems with their various components and interactions: U.S., Germany, Canada, China, Singapore, UK, and others.

Outcome 3: Apply statistical analysis to OECD indicators in order to benchmark the performance of health care systems. To be able to discuss the limitations, advantages and disadvantages of such statistical comparisons.

Outcome 4: Develop awareness of the challenges of political reform initiatives and why it is so difficult to fundamentally change existing health care systems. Explain why most health care systems are unique and historically grown.