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Evidence from the National Survey of Family Growth. Work during pregnancy and subsequent hospitalization of mothers and infants.

Large and increasing proportions of women work late into pregnancy and resume work soon after delivery. If work in those periods injures their health or that of their infants, this trend would be of public health concern. Data on ever-married primaparas from the National Survey of Family Growth conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics were used to investigate the relationship between working in the last trimester of pregnancy and two indicators of illness--hospitalization of women for complications of pregnancy and hospitalization of their infants during the first year of life. Hospitalization of the mother or child occurred for 15.0 percent of the primaparas. For primaparas who worked in the last trimester of pregnancy, the percentage was slightly higher--17.1 percent. In two groups, black women and women without hospital insurance for delivery, the percentage of mothers or infants hospitalized was much higher among the mothers who worked in the third trimester than among those who did not. The association of working late in pregnancy with higher rates of hospitalization does not mean, necessarily, that working is a cause of hospitalization. It does indicate, however, the need for epidemiologic and medical research on the relationship.

Adolescent

Temporal patterns in the use of health services leading to cholecystectomy: a process evaluation using insurance records.

Data from Saskatchewan's public medical and hospital insurance programs are used to estimate a multivariate model of health services utilization among cholecystectomy patients. A methodology is developed which partitions the care process into an assessment period, a waiting period, and a hospitalization period. The general hypothesis is that presurgical and surgical decisions of physicians are influenced by extra-medical factors, including the social condition of the patient and the availability of health resources. This hypothesis is only weakly supported by the data.

Adult

Universal health insurance in Canada: history, problems, trends.

This paper describes the universal health insurance program in Canada and identifies the historical events and social values leading to its adoption. Universal hospital insurance was adopted in 1958, ten years before medical insurance, as a result hospital-based patterns of practice were solidified. Through cost sharing, the federal government influenced the provinces to enact relatively uniform universal plans. From 1951 to 1971 health care expenditures rose rapidly to 7.3% of the gross national product (GNP), but have since decreased and stabilized at about 6.9%. In contrast, health care in the United States represents 8.6% of GNP. Hospital use also increased rapidly in Canada to 1970 but appears to have stabilized and decreased slightly in this decade. Physician incomes rose rapidly before 1971, but since then the increases have slowed and relative incomes of physicians have fallen. Althouth the percent of GNP spent for health care has leveled, there are still substantial annual increases in expenditures that are paid for by government. Two federal initiatives, Bill C-37 and the Lalonde Report, have their roots in cost containment; Bill C-37 transfers greater taxing authority from the federal government to the provinces. To meet the goal of containing costs, provincial governments are moving in the direction of regionalization, decentralization, and greater coordination. In the short term, the provinces have limited hospital budgetary increases to percentages less than the rate of inflation. Cost constraints may be long overdue. Imposing fiscal limits encourages rational planning. It does not appear that the health of Canadians will be adversely affected or essential benefits curtailed by present budgetary restrictions or reorganization.

Adult

[The SUVA (Swiss Accident Insurance Association) statistics and quality control].

Overall quality control in medicine takes place on various levels: Physician--Hospital--Insurer--Authorities, each having different requirements. Comparative standards are rather seldom. A model for a comparative standard for insurer purposes, the medical statistics package SUMEST' is presented. This model is diagnoses oriented and includes parameters for the severity of the accident, cost of treatment and treatment outcome, all based on 5-year data pool results.

Accidents, Occupational

A controlled auction market is a practical solution to the shortage of transplantable organs.

All attempts relying on pure altruism to meet the demand for transplantable donor organs have failed and continue to fail. The incentive of commercialization of an organ market would seem to be the only practical solution at this time. It is almost impossible to set fixed prices for such priceless items as human organs. The only fair, honest, and feasible approach is the establishment of a free and voluntary national or international auction system under the strict supervision and control of an exclusive, specially created administrative entity free of governmental or other partisan interference. The resultant flow of funds could be enormous and would enhance the welfare of all strata of society. Wealthy buyers would be removed from current waiting lists; the donor pool greatly expanded to perhaps surplus; the resultant money used to relieve the financial burdens on families involved, hospitals, insurance companies--and also used to buy organs for the indigent on waiting lists, pay for surgeries and hospitalization, and thereby increase the income and surgical experience of more surgeons. This proposed new system should include all live as well as brain-dead donors, cadavers and consenting individuals facing purposeful and pointless destruction by judicial execution.

Altruism

Private health insurance plans in 1976: an evaluation.

Private health insures collected a record $39.4 billion in premiums and returned $35 billion in benefits to their subscribers in 1976--a reflection of the steadily rising cost of health care, higher utilization, and the demand for expanded services. The industry experienced a net underwriting loss of $611 million, mainly because claims and operating expenses under insurance-company group business ran 3 percent above premium income. About 77 percent of the civilian population had some form of private hospital insurance, and about the same percentage had some form of surgical insurance. Lesser proportions were covered for other types of care. An estimated 12--13 percent of the population under age 65 had no economic protection against the costs of illness or health-related care--under either a private insurance plan or public program. Although virtually all of the aged were covered by Medicare, some 13--15 million bought private insurance, most of it under plans that covered some or all of the gaps in the Federal program.

Age Factors

The social control of organizations in the health care area.

Available data suggest that the influence and autonomy of health care professionals have been declining. Of course, professional impact remains higher in health care than perhaps any other economic sphere, but the locus of much health care decision making has been shifting from independent professionals to employed personnel of large-scale government, hospital, insurance, and research organizations. The question therefore arises as to what shall replace this previous reliance upon individual professional ethics to assure the society that its newly powerful health care organizations are functioning in a desirable manner. In other words, what are to be the preferred mechanisms for socially controlling health care organizations. This paper traces three dominant belief patterns about how the characteristics of health care organizations and their environments produce desired control. It proposes that belief patterns have emphasized (1) the non-profit motives of many health care organizations; (2) the system of interrelationships that surround health care organizations; and (3) the vast differences among health care consumers. Choices from among these models continue to depend less upon knowledge of organizational functioning than upon political dispositions and social fancy.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance Plans