Chapter 8: Health Care Policy
Exercises
1. Interpreting Health Care Statistics
A range of information is available in regard to health care and the statistics used to measure this issue. For this exercise, you will use the site of one of the federal government's primary agencies responsible for collecting and interpreting health care data.
Go to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. Click on "Health, United States." Scroll down and click on the "Searchable list of trend table titles." This link shows you a number of different health indicators used to evaluate a variety of health care issues.
- Click on the infant, neonatal, and postneonatal table to see the mortality rates for this group. Has this statistic changed over the past twenty years? How does race appear to affect these statistics? Now examine the infant mortality rates and the international ranking table. Where did the United States rank in the most recent year shown? How does it compare with other developed nations? How about developing nations?
- Now go to the table on cigarette smoking (around #63). What is the percentage of the population who smoked in the most recent year shown? How does this percentage compare with that of 1965? What segment of the population has the highest percentage of smokers?
- Go to the total health expenditures table (around #118) to examine how much the United States spends on health care annually. In the most recent year shown, what percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product was spent on health care? What were the nation's per capita health care expenditures? How does the United States compare to other nations in this area?
- Select any other table provided on this site and summarize its findings.
2. Prescription Drug Coverage under Medicare
Chapter 8 discussed the addition of a prescription drug plan to the Medicare program. This exercise will introduce you to the material available on the Medicare Web site in regard to selecting a drug plan.
Go to the federal government's Medicare site. From here you can access a large amount of information about this new drug benefit. The "Want to Learn More…" site will give you background information. Select "Demo of the Prescription Drug Plan Finder" and let it work through (this will take a few minutes) to learn how a user can take advantage of this background material.
Based on what you just learned and observed, respond to the following:
- How easy did you find this Web site to navigate? What were some of the major pros and cons to utilizing the information on the site? Discuss.
- Is this the best way to get information out to the affected population about the prescription drug program? Why or why not?
- If you qualified for Medicare or were helping a family member who qualifies for Medicare, would you feel comfortable going to and using this site to select an appropriate prescription drug plan? Why or why not?