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A bibliography on the subject of economics, health care and health law is presented which includes the books "Communities and Health Care: The Rochester, New York, Experiment," by Sarah F. Liebschutz, "The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying," by Jeffrey Bishop, and "Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World," by Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte.

A bibliography on the subject of health politics, law, and policy is presented which includes the books "Explorations in the Economics of Aging," edited by David A. Wise, "Better Doctors, Better Patients, Better Decisions: Envisioning Health Care 2020," edited by Gerd Gigerenzer and J. A. Miur Gray, and "The Bleeding Disease: Hemophilia and the Unintended Consequences of Medical Progress," by Stephen Pemberton.

There has been growing tension at the intersection of health and economic policy making as global governance has increased across sectors. This tension has been particularly evident between tobacco control and trade policy, as the international norms that frame them—particularly the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the World Trade Organization (WTO)—have continued to institutionalize. Using five case studies of major tobacco-related trade disputes from the principal multilateral system of trade govemance—the WTO/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—we trace the evolution of these interacting norms over nearly twenty-five years. Our analytic framework focuses on the actors that advance, defend, and challenge these norms. We find that an increasingly broad network, which includes govemments, intergovemmental organizations, nongovemmental organizations, and members of the epistemic community, is playing a more active role in seeking to resolve these tensions. Moreover, key economic actors are beginning to incorporate health more actively into their messaging and activities. We also demonstrate that the most recent resonant messages reflect a more nuanced integration of the two norms. The tobacco control example has direct relevance to related policy areas, including environment, safety, access to medicines, diet, and alcohol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian constitution divides the responsibility for Pharmaceuticals between the federal and provincial governments. While the provincial governments are responsible for establishing public formularies, the majority of the safety and efficacy information that the provinces use comes from the federal government. We interviewed drug plan officials from eight of the ten provinces and two of three territories regarding their views on the Canadian drug safety system. Here we report on the following categories: the federal drug approval system; the strengths and weaknesses of the federal system of postmarket pharmaceutical safety (i.e., pharmacosurveillance); resources available to support provincial formulary decision making; provincial roles in pharmacosurveillance; how the drug safety system could be improved; and the role of the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network, a recently established virtual network designed to connect researchers throughout Canada who conduct postmarket drug research. Next, we place the Canadian system within an international context by comparing informational asymmetry between government institutions in the United States and the European Union and by looking at how institutions support each other's roles in sharing information and in jointly developing policy through the International Conference on Harmonization. Finally, we draw on international experiences and suggest potential solutions to the concerns that our key informants have identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When policy change is considered, what determines its success or failure? Why do plans for broad reforms often fall short, and why do certain types of change become more difficult over time? This article addresses these questions by examining health policy development in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom-specifically, why Canada alone failed to adopt nationwide, public pharmaceutical insurance. It demonstrates that the pace of change has significant implications for the scope of policy development. It provides new mechanisms to explain why incremental reforms stall based on the reciprocal relationship between elite ideas and public expectations and suggests that similar factors can explain how barriers to policy change develop and the conditions under which those barriers may be overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor-in-chief discusses articles within the issue which focus on topics such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), factors determining success or failure of health policies, and diffusion of Medicaid managed care across the states.

This article examines the cases of three health care states - two of which (Britain and the Netherlands) have undergone major policy reform and one of which (Canada) has experienced only marginal adjustments. The British and Dutch reforms have variously altered the balance of power, the mix of instruments of control, and the organizing principles. As a result, mature systems representing the ideal- typical health care state categories of national health systems and social insurance (Britain and the Netherlands, respectively) were transformed into distinctive national hybrids. These processes have involved a politics of redesign that differs from the politics of earlier phases of establishment and retrenchment. In particular, the redesign phase is marked by the activity of institutional entrepreneurs who exploit specific opportunities afforded by public programs to combine public and private resources in innovative organizational arrangements. Canada stands as a counterpoint: no window of opportunity for major change occurred, and the bilateral monopoly created by its prototypical single- payer model provided few footholds for entrepreneurial activity. The increased significance of institutional entrepreneurs gives greater urgency to one of the central projects of health policy: the design of accountability frameworks to allow for an assessment of performance against objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health technology assessment (HTA) has received increasing support over the past twenty years in both North America and Europe. The justification for this field of policy-oriented research is that evidence about the efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of technology should contribute to decision and policy making. However, concerns about the ability of HTA producers to increase the use of their findings by decision makers have been expressed. Although HTA practitioners have recognized that dissemination activities need to be intensified, why and how particular approaches should be adopted is still under debate. Using an institutional theory perspective, this article examines HTA as a means of implementing knowledge-based change within health care systems. It presents the results of a case study on the dissemination strategies of six Canadian HTA agencies. Chief executive officers and executives (n = 11), evaluators (n = 19), and communications staff (n = 10) from these agencies were interviewed. Our results indicate that the target audience of HTA is frequently limited to policy makers, that three conflicting visions of HTA dissemination coexist, that active dissemination strategies have only occasionally been applied, and that little attention has been paid to the management of diverging views about the value of health technology. Our discussion explores the strengths, limitations, and trade-offs associated with the three visions. Further efforts should be deployed within agencies to better articulate a shared vision and to devise dissemination strategies that are consistent with this vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]