This course presents and facilitates the development of an analysis of major health service delivery and management issues in the United States. The course presents a systematic comparative analysis of the evolution, administrative structure, finance, and provision of medical care in the United States. Health and illness are familiar concepts to all of us, but we are used to thinking of them as biological phenomena. This course will expand your understanding of health and illness by looking at them as socio-cultural and socio-economic phenomena. Important differences rooted in culture, ethnicity, social, economic and political factors will be examined to encourage innovative “framing” of U.S. health public policies pertaining to the US health care system. (Last offered in Spring 2020 due to curricular revision. Starting fall 2020, course was re-named PHAR 428).