This course is organized around contemporary policy issues affecting the health and health care of children in the US and their families, set within the context of the US health care system. Using common analytic approaches and concepts, it begins with a broad look at the unique issues confronting child health policy makers: Who serve as children's proxies, and for what particular issues within the realm of their health and health care? What are available measures of child health, and which are the best to use? It also examines specific policy questions and problems pertaining to children's health, specifically the effect of recent Medicaid expansions, the delinking of Medicaid from welfare benefits for families, the development of state child health insurance programs, the problem of underinsurance for children, apparent contradictions in the US campaign to vaccinate all children through private-public partnerships, neonatal intensive care, bioterrorism, the epidemic of childhood obesity, and the care of children with special health care needs. The emphasis in each of these topic areas will be the identification of stakeholders, clarification of the interests of children's proxies, the ability to measure outcomes of policy decisions (and what those outcomes are), and anticipated future developments.