A Model for Change: Legislative Advocacy to Improving Access for the Uninsured and Underinsured in New York State 1

Advocates can successfully improve access to health care for people without health insurance. This article demonstrates the success of what began as a local advocacy effort to improve access to health care on Long Island, which later grew to become a major statewide advocacy movement. It explores the process taken by local coalition members to successfully fight for monumental public health legislation—first locally then statewide—to improve access to hospital care for the medically indigent. Using New York State as a model, it includes several approaches that could facilitate the enactment of legislation in other states. The experiences of New York advocates suggest that with focused collaborative efforts it is feasible to promote significant changes to public health laws to benefit the uninsured and underinsured.     

The health care system of the People's Republic of China: Between privatization and public health care

Chinese health care policy has undergone numerous reforms in recent years that have often led to new challenges, inciting the need for further reform. The most recent reforms attempt to find a middle path between public health care provision and commercial private insurance. In this way, China is following in the footsteps of countries that initially increased the role of privatization in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century, but are now gearing towards public health care. However, this process of constant reform has led to a lack of transparency in the functioning of the health care system, provoking a loss in public trust. There remains an important degree of uncertainty about the future direction of developments in China. Nonetheless, a dual financing approach to health care using tax finance and social insurance might yet crystallize, offering a potential model to inform developments in other countries.     

Post Acute Care of the Elderly in Singapore What Factors Influence Use of Services?

This research focused on understanding the factors associated with utilization of post-acute care services in Singapore and how these are woven into family care as well as the lived experience of elderly persons and their families. The multi-method study applied Andersen's model and the quantitative results of the 299 elderly Singaporeans surveyed showed medical and physical conditions, perceived health and utility, knowledge and previous use of service, ethnicity, family size, paid help, housing type, and living arrangement as significant factors. Qualitative results from interviews of a subsample of 13 elderly and their family members and focus group discussions of providers consistently pointed affordability of services as an important factor. Findings surfaced the question of service accessibility and its implications on practice, policy, and research.     

The Structure of the Chinese Banking System and Credit Access Problems for SMEs

This paper examines the structure and the main characteristics of the Chinese banking industry. In particular, the paper analyses the problematic aspects of credit relations of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs are facing several problems in accessing the bank loans market, dominated by the political and contractual weight of state-owned enterprises. However, some recent reforms have improved the situation, a fundamental condition for additional positive results. Nevertheless, further and more pervasive modernization efforts are needed to consolidate these results and to develop the relationships between banks and SMEs.

Increasing college access for youth aging out of foster care: Evaluation of a summer camp program for foster youth transitioning from high school to college

Young people who transition from the foster care system face many challenges including lack of support and other educational barriers. They are less likely to graduate from high school than their counterparts and go on to college yet despite challenges, many succeed and take advantage of higher education programs.In Michigan, a state with one of the highest percentage of youth in foster care, Michigan State University developed a small scale, targeted intervention to help transitioning foster youth achieve their goals of pursuing higher education. Led by the School of Social Work in collaboration with other colleges and disciplines, it was demonstrated that a campus based learning program for transitioning foster youth can help contribute toward a perceived increase in knowledge and information about college life, funding and admissions procedures. The educational process involved peer support, role modeling, mentoring and active learning sessions led by the faculty and students who were often foster care alumni themselves. Leaders and speakers came from a range of disciplines, institutions and organizations. This approach and curriculum contributed to perceptions of the camp as enhancing life skills, self-concept, empowerment and sense of purpose. Consequently, this program contributed to the resilience of those who attended and potentially helped build steps from care to higher education.     

Access visits: Perceptions of child protection workers, foster parents and children who are Crown wards

Objective

To report findings from a study of the perceptions of foster parents, child protection workers and children regarding supervised access visits for children who are permanent wards (Crown wards).

Methods

Interviews were conducted with twenty-four Crown wards having regular supervised access visits. Eight focus groups were conducted with twenty-four foster parents, and twenty-six child protection workers. Interviews and focus groups explored perspectives regarding supervised access visits. Interviews and focus groups were transcribed, coded, and thematically analyzed. Negative case analysis, prolonged engagement, and triangulation contributed to the trustworthiness of the research.

Results

While this study is explorative, findings suggest considerable dissatisfaction regarding access visits among foster parents and workers, inadequate training for workers and foster parents, poor communication and consultation regarding access visits, and confusion regarding the roles of supervisors.

Conclusions

The data suggest several possible explanations for children's distress associated with access visits including lack of communication among access supervisors, workers and foster parents; insufficient training for workers who supervise visits; and a lack of validation of the children's contradictory feelings towards their mothers.

Practice implications

Findings suggest the need for more consultation with and inclusion of foster parents in access visits. More training is required for workers supervising access visits including whether and how it is beneficial for children to express their feelings and address potentially difficult topics regarding their biological family members.     

企业生产资源获取方式的研究

一、问题的提出人类的经济活动随着时代的变迁和社会体制的差别会呈现出不同的特征。卡尔·波兰尼(Karl polanyi,1957)将人类的经济生产方式分为互惠经济、再分配经济和市场经济。市场经济的特征是生产者与消费者直接见面,价格和货币是其联系的桥梁;再分配经济的特征是生产者与消费者不直接联系,各种资源是政府按照权利关系进行分配;而在互惠经济中,生产者与消费者也直接见面,但是联系的桥梁是礼物和信任。李新春(2000)从契约安排的角度将经济活动中的契约形态分为原始契约、命令契约和法律契约。原始契约是靠血缘或非血缘社会关系网络来规…     

High‐frequency family contact: a road to nowhere for infants

Understanding the practices which support the best interests of infants when placed in out‐of‐home care in the first year of life is a significant challenge. A study based in Victoria, Australia, explored the practice by the Children's Court of ordering high‐frequency contact (4–7 days a week) with the infant's mother and father when they are placed in care in the first year of life. A literature review revealed little attention to the issue of frequency of family contact for infants. An audit of case files of all infants in care in mid‐2007 showed that at 1 year follow‐up, there was no difference in the reunification rate for children with a period of high‐frequency contact and those with less contact with their mothers and fathers. Focus groups revealed deep divisions of opinion about high‐frequency family contact which are played out in the adversarial Children's Court system in Victoria. The study highlights the complexity of understanding and supporting the attachment relationships at this critical period in the infant's life.     

Model Diagnostics for Remote Access Regression Servers

To protect public-use microdata, one approach is not to allow users access to the microdata. Instead, users submit analyses to a remote computer that reports back basic output from the fitted model, such as coefficients and standard errors. To be most useful, this remote server also should provide some way for users to check the fit of their models, without disclosing actual data values. This paper discusses regression diagnostics for remote servers. The proposal is to release synthetic diagnostics—i.e. simulated values of residuals and dependent and independent variables–constructed to mimic the relationships among the real-data residuals and independent variables. Using simulations, it is shown that the proposed synthetic diagnostics can reveal model inadequacies without substantial increase in the risk of disclosures. This approach also can be used to develop remote server diagnostics for generalized linear models.     

No Human Resource is an Island: Gendered,Racialized Access to Work as a Performer

This article explores the reproduction of gendered, racialized conceptions of age and appearance in structuring access to performing work. Analysis of this issue leads to discussion of a key supposition: that central work experiences of women performers are manifestations of their position as formal and informal proxies for women's experiences in wider society. Women performers are formal proxies in that they are employed to ‘be women’; to represent women for consumption in the circuit of culture. They are informal proxies in that they are allocated to highly segmented labour markets based on wider patterns of gendered, racialized social relations.