Predictors of out-of-pocket medical expenditures in low-income households

From a sample of low-income households, out-of-pocket medical expenses are found to average about $25 per month. For each household, these expenses vary with annual income, type of insurance for medical care, priority of medical expenses, ethnicity, and number of ill family members. Expenses are reported for households with different socioeconomic characteristics and composition. Multiparticipation in insurance programs is shown. Fourteen percent of the survey participants say they have no insurance, public or private. Thirty-three percent participate in Medicaid.Flora L. Williams is an Associate Professor in Consumer Sciences and Retailing at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University and includes family economic well-being, and financial problems and expenditures among her research interests.Amy Hagler received her M.S. from Purdue University in Consumer Sciences and Retailing.Mary Pritchard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human and Family Resources at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854. Her Ph.D. was earned at Purdue and her areas of research focus on family economic well-being and economic socialization of adolescents.Marshall A. Martin is a Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. His research addresses agriculture and food policy, and economic assessment of emerging agricultural technology.William C. Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Indianapolis, 1400 E. Hanna Avenue, Indianapolis, IN, 46227-3697. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University and focuses his research on economic psychology and health care cost.     

香港特区政府职能模式之理论分析

在黑格尔确立的国家--社会二元分立分析框架下,香港特区政府职能的特点主要表现在两个方面:一是"守夜人"和"经济人"相结合的政府职能定位,二是以市场化、法制化和间接性为特色的政府职能行使方式.作为一个成功范例,香港政府职能定位的普遍意义在于:第一,给社会以充分的自由,从而使社会蕴藏的能量不会因政府管制而受到抑制,同时避免或减少了政府的错误干预行为;第二,有利于保持和发挥市场在资源配置中的基础和主导作用;第三,有利于减少政府开支,降低社会管理成本;第四,有利于减少政府对社会资源的控制,防止腐败现象的滋生.这一职能定位对于政府主导型市场经济国家来说,具有一定的借鉴意义.     

Editorial

Helmut Anheier is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.     

The Development of Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance in Germany and Japan

Both Japan and (West) Germany were subjected to foreign “Allied”Occupation from 1945. In this fiftieth anniversary year of the ending of World War Two and the commencement of these periods of Occupation, this paper assesses and compares the impact of the latter experience on social policy development in Germany and Japan. In particular, it focusses on social assistance and unemployment insurance, on the grounds that provision for “the able-bodied poor”constitutes a clear guide as to how far each society has progressed or is progressing along the road to “social citizenship”as defined by T. H. Marshall. The import of Allied Occupation was in practice quite different in the two cases, not least because of their very different paths of social policy development beforehand. Developments in the wake of Occupation and upto the present are nonetheless indicative of there being some elements of policy “convergence”, which welfare state regime theory has hitherto failed to allow for in its concentration upon “whole systems”at the expense of more detailed policy “subsystem”review.     

Using panel methods to model waiting times for National Health Service surgery

Summary. Long waiting times for non-emergency (elective) procedures are a central feature of the UK's National Health Service, with about 1 million people waiting for surgery at any one time. This paper develops empirical models of the demand for and supply of elective surgery which simultaneously determine waiting times. The models are tested by using a panel of annual data for 5499 small areas from 1991 to 1998. Supply and demand functions are estimated for all specialties combined and for seven individual specialties, using panel data methods that incorporate simultaneously determined variables. The elasticity of demand with respect to waiting time varies between specialties but is always quite small. The results are discussed in the light of UK Government policy initiatives designed to reduce waiting times substantially. The analysis suggests that these initiatives will not stimulate demand markedly and therefore stand a good chance of succeeding provided that adequate additional resources are made available.     

The state of American Sociology

Sociology appears to be one of the most internally divided disciplines, if not the most. Departmental struggles, which have led to sociologists complaining to administrators about each other, have put the field in bad repute among campus officials and have endangered its survival in some schools. The American Sociological Society and American Sociological Association have been among the most conflict-ridden associations in academe for generations. Severe internecine struggles have a long history in the field. It may be suggested that they are related to the propensity of the field to attract social reformers and political activists. But hard evidence indicates sociology graduate students are among the weakest, as judged by test scores.This is an elaboration of an American Sociological Association presidential presentation to a plenary session of the Southern Sociological Association on April 2, 1993.