Description
Book SynopsisExamines the emergence of private, work-based benefits; the uniquely American pursuit of "social insurance"; the influence of race and gender on the health care debate; and the confrontation between reformers and powerful economic and health interests.
Trade Review"This is a sophisticated, impassioned, and well-documented analysis of the failures of twentieth-century American health reform efforts."--David Rosner, Business History Review "[A] brilliantly recounted, thoughtful, and persuasive argument, not for simple explanations, but for a complex, on-the-ground discussion of what it was in the United States that made universal health insurance 'dead on arrival.'... [This book] is impeccably and impressively researched, drawing extensively on governmental and private archives."--Rosemary A. Stevens, Bulletin of the History of Medicine "Another autopsy of the failure to implement a US national health plan? Yes, but Dead on Arrival is more interesting, informative, and compelling than others. Its strength lies in the integration of multiple social, economic, and political perspectives within a historical context to address the question, why no national health insurance?"--Bernard S. Bloom, Journal of the American Medical Association "A welcome addition to a large literature on the modern United States medical system... [It] illuminates the political deadlock and the institutional rigidity of the American system and offers a cogent explanation for why reform has been so intractable in health care throughout the last hundred years."--Declan O'Reilly, Enterprise & Society "A treasure trove of information for anyone seriously wishing to tackle this issue."--Tom Gallagher, San Francisco Bay Guardian "At a time of renewed popular and scholarly debate over America's exceptional welfare state, students of American public affairs will find much of value in Gordon's timely book."--Jacob S. Hacker, Political Science Quarterly
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Abbreviations xi Introduction: Why No National Health Insurance in the United States? 1 1. The Political Economy of American Health Care: An Overview, 1910-2000 12 2. Bargaining for Health: Private Health Insurance and Public Policy 46 3. Between Contract and Charity: Health Care and the Dilemmas of Social Insurance 90 4. Socialized Medicine and Other Afflictions: The Political Culture of the Health Debate 136 5. Health Care in Black and White: Race, Region, and Health Politics 172 6. Private Interests and Public Policy: Health Care's Corporate Compromise 210 7. Silenced Majority: American Politics and the Dilemmas of Health Reform 261 Conclusion: The Past and Future of Health Politics 297 Archival Sources 303 Index 307
