Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care

Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care
Author: Stuart Altman
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2011-09-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1616144572

Essential reading for every American who must navigate the US health care system. Why was the Obama health plan so controversial and difficult to understand? In this readable, entertaining, and substantive book, Stuart Altman—internationally recognized expert in health policy and adviser to five US presidents—and fellow health care specialist David Shactman explain not only the Obama health plan but also many of the intriguing stories in the hundred-year saga leading up to the landmark 2010 legislation. Blending political intrigue, policy substance, and good old-fashioned storytelling, this is the first book to place the Obama health plan within a historical perspective. The authors describe the sometimes haphazard, piece-by-piece construction of the nation’s health care system, from the early efforts of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to the later additions of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. In each case, they examine the factors that led to success or failure, often by illuminating little-known political maneuvers that brought about immense shifts in policy or thwarted herculean efforts at reform. The authors look at key moments in health care history: the Hill–Burton Act in 1946, in which one determined poverty lawyer secured the rights of the uninsured poor to get hospital care; the "three-layer cake" strategy of powerful House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Wilbur Mills to enact Medicare and Medicaid under Lyndon Johnson in 1965; the odd story of how Medicare catastrophic insurance was passed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 and then repealed because of public anger in 1989; and the fact that the largest and most expensive expansion of Medicare was enacted by George W. Bush in 2003. President Barack Obama is the protagonist in the climactic chapter, learning from the successes and failures chronicled throughout the narrative. The authors relate how, in the midst of a worldwide financial meltdown, Obama overcame seemingly impossible obstacles to accomplish what other presidents had tried and failed to achieve for nearly one hundred years.

Universal Health Care

Universal Health Care
Author: Kristina Lyn Heitkamp
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2018-07-15
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1534503161

With the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010, the United States seemed closer than ever to achieving universal health care. However, repealing the act has been a key goal for the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress, with the main arguments against it including the higher premiums for middle-class Americans and the abuse of government power through its control of the insurance industry. This volume helps define universal health care, explains the arguments for and against it, and discusses attempts to implement it on an international scale.

Interest Groups and Health Care Reform across the United States

Interest Groups and Health Care Reform across the United States
Author: Virginia Gray
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2013-05-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1589019903

Universal health care was on the national political agenda for nearly a hundred years until a comprehensive (but not universal) health care reform bill supported by President Obama passed in 2010. The most common explanation for the failure of past reform efforts is that special interests were continually able to block reform by lobbying lawmakers. Yet, beginning in the 1970s, accelerating with the failure of the Clinton health care plan, and continuing through the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, health policy reform was alive and well at the state level. Interest Groups and Health Care Reform across the United States assesses the impact of interest groups to determine if collectively they are capable of shaping policy in their own interests or whether they influence policy only at the margins. What can this tell us about the true power of interest groups in this policy arena? The fact that state governments took action in health policy in spite of opposing interests, where the national government could not, offers a compelling puzzle that will be of special interest to scholars and students of public policy, health policy, and state politics.

Marching Toward Coverage

Marching Toward Coverage
Author: Rosemarie Day
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0807018953

A lively, clear explanation of the American healthcare reform movement from a noted expert—giving women the tools they need to demand fair and affordable coverage for all people Healthcare is one of America’s most dysfunctional and confusing industries, and women bear the brunt of the problem when it comes to both access and treatment. Women, who make 80 percent of healthcare decisions for their families, are disproportionately impacted by the complex nature of our healthcare system—but are also uniquely poised to fix it. Founder and CEO of Day Health Strategies Rosemarie Day wants women to recognize their trouble with accessing affordable care as part of a national emergency. Day encourages women throughout the country to share their stories and get involved, and she illustrates how a groundswell of activism, led by everyday women, could create the incentives our political leaders need to change course. Marching Toward Coverage gives women the clear information they need to move this agenda forward by breaking down complicated topics in an accessible manner, like the ACA (Affordable Care Act), preexisting conditions, and employer-sponsored plans. With more than 25 years working in healthcare strategy and related fields, Day helps the average American understand the business of national health reform and lays out a pragmatic path forward, one that recognizes healthcare as a fundamental human right.

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm

Crossing the Global Quality Chasm
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2019-01-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309477891

In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.

Health Care Politics, Policy, and Distributive Justice

Health Care Politics, Policy, and Distributive Justice
Author: Robert P. Rhodes
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 1991-10-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1438417217

This book describes and evaluates power and influence in the creation, administration, and distribution of health care in the United States. His work is uniquely concerned with distributive justice as well as power. Who ought to receive more (or less) health care? How should we decide these distributions? Such questions are addressed in works of philosophy with little attention to political, legal, and economic analysis of budget dilemmas, professional and industrial politics, and technology. This volume takes the issue a step further by placing health policy issues in the broader context of American politics, illuminating the conflict between health resources and other needs, and evaluating the trade offs.

High Performance Healthcare: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve Quality, Efficiency and Resilience

High Performance Healthcare: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve Quality, Efficiency and Resilience
Author: Jody Hoffer Gittell
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0071621814

In her groundbreaking book The Southwest Airlines Way, Jody Hoffer Gittell revealed the management secrets of the company Fortune magazine called “the most successful airline in history.” Now, the bestselling business author explains how to apply those same principles in one of our nation’s largest, most important, and increasingly complex industries. High Performance Healthcare explains the critical concept of “relational coordination”—coordinating work through shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect. Because of the way healthcare is organized, weak links exist throughout the chain of communication. Gittell clearly demonstrates that relational coordination strengthens those weak links, enabling providers to deliver high quality, efficient care to their patients. Using Gittell’s innovative management methods, you will improve quality, maximize efficiency, and compete more effectively. High Performance Healthcare walks you step by step through the process of: Identifying weak areas of relational coordination within your organization Transforming work practices that are creating barriers to relational coordination Building a high performance work system to foster consistent relational coordination across all disciplines The book includes case studies illustrating how some healthcare organizations are already transforming themselves using Gittell’s proven tools. It concludes by identifying industry-level obstacles to high performance healthcare and showing how individual organizations and their leaders can support sweeping change at the highest levels. Policy changes and increased access to care will not alone answer the healthcare industry’s problems. Timely, accurate, problem-solving communication that crosses all organizational boundaries is a powerful response to business as usual. High Performance Healthcare explains exactly how to achieve this crucial dynamic, providing a long-awaited cure to an industry in crisis.

Achieving Access

Achieving Access
Author: Joseph Harris
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2017-09-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1501714740

At a time when the world’s wealthiest nations struggle to make health care and medicine available to everyone, why do resource-constrained countries make costly commitments to universal health coverage and AIDS treatment after transitioning to democracy? Joseph Harris explores the dynamics that made landmark policies possible in Thailand and Brazil but which have led to prolonged struggle and contestation in South Africa. Drawing on firsthand accounts of the people wrestling with these issues, Achieving Access documents efforts to institutionalize universal healthcare and expand access to life-saving medicines in three major industrializing countries. In comparing two separate but related policy areas, Harris finds that democratization empowers elite professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, to advocate for universal health care and treatment for AIDS. Harris’s analysis is situated at the intersection of sociology, political science, and public health and will speak to scholars with interests in health policy, comparative politics, social policy, and democracy in the developing world. In light of the growing interest in health insurance generated by implementation of the Affordable Care Act (as well as the coming changes poised to be made to it), Achieving Access will also be useful to policymakers in developing countries and officials working on health policy in the United States.

The Social Transformation of American Medicine

The Social Transformation of American Medicine
Author: Paul Starr
Publisher:
Total Pages: 532
Release: 1982
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780465079353

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review

Presidential Healthcare Reform Rhetoric

Presidential Healthcare Reform Rhetoric
Author: Noam Schimmel
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2016-09-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 331932960X

This book analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by the four Democratic presidents, Truman, Johnson, Clinton and Obama, who tried to expand access to and affordability of healthcare in the United States. It considers how they made such arguments, the ethics they advanced, and the vision of America they espoused. The author combines rhetoric analysis, policy analysis, and policy history to illuminate the dynamic nature of the way American presidents have imagined the moral and social bonds of the American people and their exhortations for governance and policy to reflect and honor these bonds and obligations. Schimmel illustrates how Democratic presidents invoke positive liberty and communitarian values in direct challenge to opposing conservative ideologies of limited government and prioritization of negative liberty and their increasing prominence in the post-Reagan era. He also draws attention to the ethical and policy compromises entailed by the usage of specific rhetorical strategies and their resulting discursive effects.