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Author: Colin Gordon
ISBN : 0691119511
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Download Free Download Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) [Paperback] from mediafire, rapishare, and mirror link
Why, alone among industrial democracies, does the United States not have national health insurance? While many books have addressed this question, Dead on Arrival is the first to do so based on original archival research for the full sweep of the twentieth century. Drawing on a wide range of political, reform, business, and labor records, Colin Gordon traces a complex and interwoven story of political failure and private response. He examines, in turn, 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 ongoing confrontation between reformers and powerful economic and health interests.
Dead on Arrival stands alone in accounting for the failure of national or universal health policy from the early twentieth century to the present. As importantly, it also suggests how various interests (doctors, hospitals, patients, workers, employers, labor unions, medical reformers, and political parties) confronted the question of health care--as a private responsibility, as a job-based benefit, as a political obligation, and as a fundamental right.
Using health care as a window onto the logic of American politics and American social provision, Gordon both deepens and informs the contemporary debate. Fluidly written and deftly argued, Dead on Arrival is thus not only a compelling history of the health care quandary but a fascinating exploration of the country's political economy and political culture through "the American century," of the role of private interests and private benefits in the shaping of social policy, and, ultimately, of the ways the American welfare state empowers but also imprisons its citizens.
Books with free ebook downloads available Free Download Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) [Paperback]
- Series: Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America
- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press (November 15, 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0691119511
- ISBN-13: 978-0691119519
- Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6.3 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Free Download Dead on Arrival: The Politics of Health Care in Twentieth-Century America
American politicians like to pride themselves on their pragmatism: Colin Gordon provides the valuable tale of how "pragmatism" got the United States Health Care system into an ungodly mess. By 1990 the United States spent 13% of its GNP on health care, while no other OECD country spent more than 9%. And yet at any given time at least 15% of Americans lack proper health insurance, while much of the insured's coverage is spotty and sacrificed to insurer profits. The generous system of remuneration practically breeds health care inflation. As one public relations consultant warned medical conservatives in 1961, the United States was the only major country not to have some form of national health insurance. He pointed out that if such a system was the high cost, low quality mess the AMA claimed it was, why hadn't conservatives in the 59 countries that had adapted successfully convinced people to change their minds and adapt the American system? A good question, but the AMA, the insurers, the hospitals and major employers have been alarmingly successful at keeping common sense at bay. Why is this the case? Colin Gordon notes contrasting explanations such as American ideological opposition to government assistance, the institutional weaknesses of governmental welfare structures, and the power of anti-welfare capital. He points out the weakness of the first argument: national health insurance has always been popular in opinion polls. And the American government has improved its bureaucratic capacity over the years. The real problem is that, thanks to the nature of American politics and past mistakes, the forces supporting national health insurance have been weakened and fragmented and have never been able to match the influence of the powerful health care lobbies.
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