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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences
Solving Maine’S Health Care Crisis Requires “Tough Choices”, Wendy Wolf
Solving Maine’S Health Care Crisis Requires “Tough Choices”, Wendy Wolf
Maine Policy Review
Wendy Wolf’s commentary discusses the “tough choices” process which invited selected Maine citizens to participate in town hall meeting sessions to provide input on the state’s health plan. She notes that it was easier for participants to agree on health promotion and healthcare delivery processes than for them to make choices about how to pay for healthcare.
How Many Regional Medical Centers Can Maine Sustain? How Patient Hospital Utilization Can Help Define Structure, Lars Rydell
How Many Regional Medical Centers Can Maine Sustain? How Patient Hospital Utilization Can Help Define Structure, Lars Rydell
Maine Policy Review
Making thoughtful decisions about where various levels of hospital care are to be provided is an important part of controlling overall healthcare costs. Efficient utilization of healthcare resources requires that high-cost and less frequently used high-tech equipment and specialized personnel should be limited to a few tertiary regional medical centers. Lars Rydell uses patient discharge data from the Maine Health Data Organization to suggest that Maine currently has only two hospitals that function as tertiary regional medical centers—Maine Medical Center in Portland and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. Policymakers need to think about whether Maine’s population base warrants more …
Rising Prescription Drug Costs: What Is Involved And What Can Be Done?, James Carroll
Rising Prescription Drug Costs: What Is Involved And What Can Be Done?, James Carroll
Maine Policy Review
The rapid rise of prescription drug costs in the United States has triggered heated debate at the federal and state levels about how to control costs and expand access for those in need. In part, the United States finds itself in this situation because, unlike most countries throughout the world, the federal government thus far has refused to exact federal price restrictions on pharmaceutical products. James Carroll argues that this has left each state in the difficult position of trying to leverage lower costs and expanded access for its citizens. In this article, Carroll provides an overview of these attempts, …