The elderly's access to health care services: The crude and subtle impacts of Medicare changes

Medicare, the federal government's health insurance program for the aged and disabled, has been subjected to a number of legislative and regulatory changes since 1981 aimed at reducing the costs of the program. About a third of the cutbacks have been in activities that directly increase patient cost sharing. Other changes, while aimed at improving efficiency, may also shift costs onto program beneficiaries. This paper estimates the differential impacts of such program changes by age and income of elderly Medicare enrollees and discusses the likely resulting impact on their access to care. Surprisingly, such equity concerns have been largely overlooked in the policy debate concerning cost containment under Medicare.     

Education and identity: Thoughts on the social origins of anorexia

Anorexia nervosa is often said to be a condition which afflicts mainly middle-class girls. This paper suggests that it is not social class but a high level of educational attainment which is associated with the onset of anorexia.The effect of education is analysed in terms of it's influence on the identity -formation of the young woman. Anorexia can be seen as an attempt to rescue a spoilt identity.     

Kay Daniels as feminist historian

Abstract

While spending the better part of two academic years out of her home country, the USA, the author became increasingly perplexed by the current emphasis on poststructural theory in the writing of women's history. She says this because such theory may not only isolate this highly successful new subfield from the ongoing Second Women's Movement in the United States and from history teachers trying to integrate material on women into their classes, but most sadly, isolate American historians of women from their counterparts in Eastern European and Third World countries who are only beginning to write about their past.