This research compares the delivery of health care services in the United Kingdom and the United States. The issues in this comparative public policy analysis are the policy making processes in the two countries, health care funding, health care costs, and access to health care services. The delivery of health care services to elderly persons in the two countries is compared as a part of this policy analysis.
In contemporary society, prospects for the health of individuals are
. . determined by public policy, by those decisions which shape contemporary environments in communities, workplaces, homes, and schools. Public policy sets parameters for the mode and character of industrial and agricultural production, corporate management, and individual behavior (Milio, 1991, p. 3).
Public health, thus, is more than a polio epidemic or an AIDS crisis, and public health policies concern more than the programs required to deal with such epidemics and crises. "Health is not a 'state' to be captured and dealt with; nor is it some achievement to be attained with finality. It is rather the response of people to their environments" (Milio, 1991, p. 3). Public health, therefore, is concerned with both the health status of individuals in a society, and all of the environmental factors that affect individual health. Public health policy at the national level is required because the factors affecting individual health are, in many instances, pervasive in society. Development of an acceptable level of public health within a large and complex society such as those of the United Kingdom and the United States
. . requires an interpretation of the nature of today's health problem. . . . Its focus is on the interconnection between "causes" and illnesses and the ways they affect each other, as well as the linkages among "causes" and among illnesses. All these ties suggest the plausibility of viewing today's health problem as a resp...