Healthcare Policy and Regulation
Which statement best describes the American presidency?
Americans want both a powerful president and a powerful republic.
In order to convince smaller drug manufacturers to develop and produce generic versions of MDR-TB drugs, Doctors Farmer and Kim first sought to increase ____ by having the drugs listed on the World Health Organization's essential drugs list.
Demand
Which statement best describes the author's view of efficiency?
Efficiency reflects a particular point of view.
How did Republican Newt Gingrich's actions in 1995 assist the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010?
He engineered a more centralized House of Representatives.
Which statement best describes President Obama's approach to health care reform?
He set broad parameters and then left it to the Democratic leadership in Congress, working with committee chairs and members, to fill in the details and craft the actual legislation.
In 1967, New York passed legislation to set the Medicaid income eligibility requirements at a level that included the poor and also working- and middle-class families. What was the federal government's response?
It capped income eligibility for Medicaid at 133% of the Assistance to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) eligibility line.
What role does policy consideration play in common law adjudication?
It guides the interpretation of precedent.
The author states that health care reform will always challenge the head and the soul of whomever is the President. What reason does he provide?
It reflects the greatest challenge to any society: How well do we minister to our fellow humans?
Which statement best describes the Affordable Care Act's effort to reduce the number of uninsured?
It relies on both the private market and government action.
The Affordable Care Act had important implications for Medicare. Which statement is true?
Its Medicare-related provisions generated funds to help cover the uninsured.
Which statement best describes the role of party membership in the Congress?
Members may hold the leverage in negotiations with party leaders.
From the political history of health care reform, the author distills six points of advice. In which area did President Obama most clearly succeed while President Clinton did not?
Move Fast, Act Early
Which description best portrays the relationship between the federal government and the states in grant implementation processes?
Power relationships between the federal government and the states are roughly symmetrical.
Which statement regarding the future of Medicare is true?
Raising the Medicare eligibility age shifts costs.
Which statement best describes the current ideological status of the Congress?
Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate have become both more ideologically coherent within their respective ranks and increasingly separated from one another.
Which statement is true regarding Medicaid coverage of long-term care?
State policy decisions account for 85% of spending on the aged.
Which statement is an example of the concept of competitive federalism?
States vie with each other to keep their tax burdens low in order to retain and attract businesses and the affluent, which makes them reluctant to raise taxes to enhance Medicaid coverage.
Which statement best describes the Affordable Care Act (ACA)?
The ACA permits pricing according to age and tobacco use.
When Republican Scott Brown won an upset victory to complete the term of Senator Ted Kennedy, how did the Democrats respond in the health care reform process?
The House passed the Senate version of the bill to bypass the conference committee.
Which statement is true regarding the use of home- and community-based services?
The vast majority of persons in need of long-term care services and covered by Medicaid reside in the community.
Which attribute is associated with a "consensus" type of democratic constitutional design?
There is a separation of powers among the executive, legislature, and judiciary.
Which statement regarding civil false claims cases is true?
They may be brought by a private whistle blower who shares in the recovery.
Which statement best describes the use of "report cards" to compare health plans?
They provide aggregated information rather than for particular medical conditions.
Recently released information indicates that President Johnson's role in the passage of Medicare in 1965 was greater than previously known. What was the source of this information?
White House telephone transcripts
In the case of Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, what guided Justice Thomas's decision?
a public policy vision of the need for a uniform national regulatory scheme for employee benefit plans
When economic interests are at stake, the Equal Protection Clause requires ____.
a rational relationship between the statute and a legitimate government interest
In the 1980s, health insurers' advertising campaigns emphasized ____.
bearing your own risk
Performing all cardiac catheterizations in the region at one hospital represents an example of the ____.
boundary problem
The Supreme Court's abortion cases articulate societal values. This is an example of law's ___
expressive function
The Affordable Care Act ____.
reverses the long-time trend to afford states more Medicaid discretion
The American Medical Association, a fierce opponent to health care reform in the past, now ____.
sought higher revenues under public programs
Which statement best describes the "public option"?
A public insurance plan modeled after Medicare that would compete with private plans to enroll those without coverage.
Presidents have three possible congressional strategies with respect to passage of health care reform: collaboration, co-optation, and ____
Combat
Heath insurance was regulated largely at the state level until passage of the ____.
Employee Retirement and Income Security Act
Which statement best describes President Harry Truman?
He was an ardent supporter of national health insurance though it was not enacted during his term.
Which statement best describes the state-federal relationship regarding the insurance exchanges required by the Affordable Care Act?
If states fail to design and operate insurance exchanges, the federal government will step in and do so.
Which statement accurately describes an assumption underlying the successful operation of markets?
Individuals' tastes for goods and services are predetermined.
Which statement best describes Pareto optimality?
It is impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off.
Which interest group was strongly against passage of the Affordable Care Act?
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
Of particular importance in the intergovernmental lobby is the ____.
National Governors Association
What does the author recommend based on his experience with health care reform?
Political scientists should be more attuned to the contours of public policy and the process by which it is made.
The first battles over insurance companies' use of actuarial fairness to charge higher rates to certain groups concerned ____.
Race
Which statement regarding the use of delegated governance in health care is accurate?
The United States delegates significant authority to private health insurance companies to serve as agents of cost control.
Which statement best describes the attention paid to health insurance coverage between 1939 and 1994?
The issue received attention from both parties but reform measures never came to a vote in the House or Senate.
The Physicians Group has sought judicial review in federal district court of an agency decision denying reimbursement under Medicare based on an interpretation of the law. What is the second step in the court's application of the Chevron standard?
Was the agency's decision based on a permissible construction of the statute?
Which partial sentence best describes a counterfactual question?
What would have happened if ...?
President Richard Nixon proposed, though without ultimate success, ____.
a government program that fills gaps in the private insurance system
A likely outcome of a social insurance program is that ____.
a small proportion of the insured account for a large proportion of the expenses
Which court has the broadest jurisdiction?
a state trial court of general jurisdiction
Judge Diaz must decide a case regarding the Medicare Part D regulations (the prescription drug benefit). She reads the regulation in question carefully, focusing closely on the literal language of the provision, and applies her interpretation to the case. She is turning to ____.
a textualist approach
Medicaid efforts at targeting to provide more generous grants to poorer states ____.
can easily be blocked in the Senate
Commercial insurance is based on what concept?
classification of risk
Commercial insurers assert that actuarial fairness requires them to ____.
closely review individual medical records
In deciding the case of United States v. Greber, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit relied on ____.
consideration of the plain meaning of terms used in statutes and the intention of Congress in using that language
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 allows insurers to ____.
deny coverage based on the presence of a genetic disease
There is a risk that efficiency calculations over-emphasize ____.
easily measurable variables
A prerequisite for the health care reform that occurred in 2010 was the ____.
election of a Democratic president
Under a market-based economic model, competition is designed to ____.
enhance efficiency
An intergovernmental pattern that emphasizes interaction between the executive branches at the national and state levels to modify grant programs primarily through the administrative process is called ____.
executive federalism
President Obama's approach was to ____.
facilitate a congressionally centered process
The Medicare Part D drug plan has ____.
failed to induce better performance by insurance plans because very few seniors leave bad plans or use their market power
A key factor in the convergence of Democrats around essentially the same reform plan was the ____.
failure of the Clinton plan
Demand-side policies are ____.
favored by those who believe in market solutions
By the close of the 1980s, Medicare had developed a new regulatory regime for paying providers in which ____.
federal policymakers asserted power over medical providers
Which structural organizational type is represented by the opportunity to filibuster during floor debates in the Senate?
fragmented
Which phase in the historical progression of federalism and health policy started in the 1960s?
growth period
What does the author suggest the future holds?
hard work to protect a law that does not deliver big tangible benefits for years to come
State efforts in the 1990s to reintroduce community rating and guaranteed issue led to ____.
healthier individuals dropping insurance due to rising premiums
The economy played an important role in health care reform in that it was ____.
in a steep downturn
The composition of the Democratic majority in Congress with whom President Obama worked ___
included fewer members from conservative southern regions
The CEO of Community Hospital plans to reduce the hours worked by employees in three departments: dietary, housekeeping, and maintenance. The most likely result of this action is a(n) ____.
increase in Community Hospital's efficiency
Putting a major health care reform proposal before the American public exemplifies which face of the presidency?
individual agenda setter
What would a political scientist most likely say makes some presidents strong while others are weak?
individual talent at a positive moment in regime evolution
What was President Ronald Reagan's role with respect to Medicare?
introduced prospective payment
The real political impact of delegated governance is to provide an immediate solution to social problems that de-rails the drive for a bigger role for government. This strategy is called ____.
issue preemption
Delegated governance helps policymakers accommodate a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of American public opinion: that Americans dislike government but ____.
like government programs
The purpose of high-deductible health plans is to ____.
make people think twice before using services
The ideal of the solidarity principle is that we should strive to distribute medical care according to ____.
medical need
A Section 1115 demonstration waiver led directly to ____.
near universal health insurance coverage in Massachusetts
What does the author state has been amazingly effective at expanding state Medicaid programs?
optional coverage
The Medicare Modernization Act prohibited the government from negotiating prices with ____.
pharmaceutical companies
In the case of Washington v. Glucksburg, Justice Rehnquist's decision was driven by ____.
policy concerns including the state's interests in the preservation of life
Maria is concerned that vaccinations may put her child at risk; however, she follows her pediatrician's recommended schedule of vaccinations in part because she believes that the community as a whole is protected by a high vaccination rate. Her response is an example of a ____.
positive externality of consumption
A problem of supply-side methods is ____.
potentially longer waits for services
In deciding the case of Canterbury v. Spence, Judge Robinson relied on
prior appellate court decisions and related policy considerations
The Medicare drug benefit is delivered by _
private companies
The viewpoint that government regulations are instituted to help the public is called the ____.
public choice theory
The author suggests that Justice Rehnquist shaped the result in the case of Washington v. Glucksberg by ____.
reframing the issue to be the right to commit suicide
The Affordable Care Act creates a comprehensive regulatory regime for all private health insurance, with states ____.
relegated to the margins of decision making
If doctor productivity is measured as number of patients treated per hour, the most efficient doctor is the one who ____.
spends the least time with patients
The author lists three dimensions that are important to coalition building in Congress: party, cohesion, and ____
structural coherence
The President wants to propose a new policy on incarceration. Within the executive branch, which entity has the most power over his proposal?
the Office of Management and Budget
Passage of the Supplemental Security Income program in 1972 created a federal Medicaid eligibility standard applicable to groups who tended to be viewed sympathetically, including ____.
the elderly, blind, and disabled
The insurance industry in particular wanted to harness the power of ____.
the individual mandate
Members of Congress have often delegated authority to private actors as a way to build support for new social programs, due to anti-statist political forces in America and ____.
the power of organized interests to permeate the legislative process
For the most part, major-party congressional candidates in general elections depend on the support of ____.
their own coalitions of voters
Early on, President Obama's team cut sweetheart deals with the pharmaceutical and hospital industries. In the long run, ____.
they largely took off the table tools of cost control used in other nations
Tom Tenant slipped and fell on the front steps of his apartment building, where ice had been allowed to accumulate, and broke his wrist. Judge Jones found Lou Landlord liable based on similar, prior cases. This case is best described as a ____.
tort case in a common law system
Term limits, mechanisms of direct democracy (the initiative and referendum), and the downsizing of bureaucracies have ___
undercut state governing capacity
Major unions, liberal think tanks, and health care advocacy organizations ____.
were strong backers of the compromise plan
