Comparative Policy Analysis and Health Care An Introduction

• Published in: Comparative Studies and the Politics of Modern Medical Care p. 1
• Main Authors: Freeman, Richard, Okma, Kieke G. H, Marmor, Theodore R
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States Yale University Press 13.10.2009
• Subjects: Arts; Comparative literature; Comparative Politics; comparative studies; Cross-national analysis; cross-national policy; Economic disciplines; Economics; Education; Education politics; Health and wellness; Health care administration; Health care economics; Health care finance; Health care industry; health care policy; Health care reform; Health insurance; Health policy; health reform; Health sciences; Health services; Literary studies; Literature; Medical care; Patient care; Policy analysis; Policy making; Political debate; Political philosophy; Political processes; Political science; Politics; Private health care; Public health; Social medicine; Welfare state; welfare state reform
• ISBN: 9780300149838; 0300149832
• DOI: 10.12987/yale/9780300149838.003.0001

None of us can escape the “bombardment of information about what is happening in other countries” (Klein 1997). Yet in the field of health policy, which is our subject, there is a considerable imbalance between the magnitude and speed of the information flows and the capacity to learn useful lessons from them.¹ There is, moreover, a substantial gap between promise and performance in the field of comparative policy studies. Misdescription and superficiality are all too common. Unwarranted inferences, rhetorical distortion, and caricatures all show up too regularly in comparative health policy scholarship and debates. Why might that be so, and