The Topography and Geography of U.S. Health Care Regulation

Abstract

This is a book review of "Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation, and Compromise" by Robert I. Field (Oxford University Press, 2007).

On the front cover of Field’s new book, "Health Care Regulation in America: Complexity, Confrontation, and Compromise," is a picture of a giant three-dimensional labyrinth. Rarely is cover art so perfectly appropriate. A maze is surely the image that best symbolizes the core objective of Field’s book: to provide readers a map and guidebook to the many interacting and overlapping private institutions and government agencies that regulate health care in America. Like all primers, the book has its limitations, but it fulfills its mission most admirably. Health Care Regulation in America provides a thorough overview of the federal, state, and local government agencies as well of as the large assortment of private organizations that develop and enforce health care regulations against hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and other industry players. This array of oversight bodies, as Field reminds us many times, can be bewildering. But Health Care Regulation in America not only untangles this twisted web, it also clarifies the logic behind the regulatory complexity.

Both legal and health professional readers can profit by using the matrix offered by this book to get the "big picture" of the history, structure, rationale, and challenges of health care regulation in the United States.

Keywords: Health Care, Health Law, Regulation

JEL Classification: K32