One Nation, Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance
Jill Quadagno
Abstract
Every industrial nation in the world guarantees its citizens access to essential health care services—every country, that is, except the United States. In fact, one in eight Americans—43 million people—do not have any health care insurance at all. This book offers a history of America's failed efforts to address the health care needs of its citizens. Covering the entire twentieth century, it shows how each attempt to enact national health insurance was met with fierce attacks by powerful stakeholders, who mobilized their considerable resources to keep the financing of health care out of the go ... More
Every industrial nation in the world guarantees its citizens access to essential health care services—every country, that is, except the United States. In fact, one in eight Americans—43 million people—do not have any health care insurance at all. This book offers a history of America's failed efforts to address the health care needs of its citizens. Covering the entire twentieth century, it shows how each attempt to enact national health insurance was met with fierce attacks by powerful stakeholders, who mobilized their considerable resources to keep the financing of health care out of the government's hands. The author describes how, at first, physicians led the anti-reform coalition, fearful that government entry would mean government control of the lucrative private health care market. Doctors lobbied legislators, influenced elections by giving large campaign contributions to sympathetic candidates, and organized “grassroots” protests, conspiring with other like-minded groups to defeat reform efforts. As the success of Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-century led physicians and the AMA to start scaling back their attacks, the insurance industry began assuming a leading role against reform that continues to this day.
Keywords:
industrial nation,
health care,
national health insurance,
stakeholders,
physicians,
anti-reform coalition,
government control,
doctors,
legislators,
elections
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2006 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195160390 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195160390.001.0001 |
