Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930"Skillfully chronicles America's struggles to make health care a right from the Depression through Obamacare. . . . beautifully written [and] compelling." —Jonathan Oberlander, author of The Political Life of Medicare Named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title In Health Care for Some, Beatrix Hoffman offers an engaging, in-depth look at America's long tradition of unequal access to health care. She argues that two main features have characterized the US health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly American approach to the rationing of care. Health Care for Some shows that the haphazard way the US system allocates medical services—using income, race, region, insurance coverage, and many other factors—is a disorganized, illogical, and powerful form of rationing. And unlike rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down, rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs, resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world. While most histories of US health care emphasize failed policy reforms, Health Care for Some looks at the system from the ground up in order to examine how rationing is experienced by ordinary Americans and how experiences of rationing have led to claims for a right to health care. By taking this approach, Hoffman puts a much-needed human face on a topic that is too often dominated by talking heads. "A well-researched, readable primer on the development of the complex, fragmented US medical system." —Times Higher Education |
Contents
Part II Prosperity and Exclusion 194164 | 37 |
Part III New Entitlements and New Movements 196580 | 115 |
Part IV Rights vs Markets 19812008 | 167 |
Acknowledgments | 223 |
Notes | 225 |
Glossary | 265 |
Bibliography | 271 |
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Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930 Beatrix Hoffman No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
access to health activists Administration African American AIDS Alabama American health American Hospital Association argued benefits bill Blue Cross Chicago Defender civil rights clinics Clinton Committee Congress consumer copayments Crisis deductibles demands disease doctors drug dumping economic emergency room EMIC employers EMTALA expanded facilities families federal Folder funds health care system health coverage health plans health programs health reform health services health system Hill-Burton Hill-Burton Act hmos income indigent insurance companies Journal labor Lister Hill major managed care means test Medi Medicaid Medical Association Medicare Medicine national health insurance nursing Obama organization Patient Dumping patients percent physicians pital political poor practice President private health insurance private hospitals private insurance Public Health Quadagno racial refused reported right to health segregation Senate seniors sick Social Security tion Truman uninsured United University Press voluntary hospitals Washington workers World War II York