Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle
"Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care is a first-rate analysis, skillfully tracing the political, social, and economic forces that, for nearly a century, thwarted efforts to enact universal health insurance legislation. At times, it reads more like a novel than a policy book as it tells the fascinating story of how the forces that frustrated past efforts to provide universal insurance coverage were overcome to pass the Affordable Care Act."-Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, 1989–1995"A riveting journey through the history of US health care reform. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand America’s elusive search for universal coverage and affordable care. Altman and Shactman do the impossible—make sense of our complex health system in an accessible and compelling way."-Jonathan Oberlander, PhD, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of The Political Life of Medicare"Stuart Altman and David Shactman’s new book does a superb job of capturing the essence of the meandering odyssey of health care policy.... They describe the pivotal events and characters of the development of universal health care with the intimacy of good storytelling. The authors make you feel like you are there."-Charles N. Kahn III, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals and former staff director of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, 1995–1998"There is not an American who has been more active and relevant in the health reform debate for the last forty years than Stuart Altman. With his talented partner, David Shactman, he has produced a well-written, insightful personal recollection of the evolution of health reform. It is an invaluable contribution to understanding how all major reforms are built on the triumphs and failures of past attempts and cannot be achieved without the application of lessons learned, leadership, good timing, and luck."-Chris Jennings, former senior health reform adviser to President Bill Clinton, 1994–2001"Rendered more in the riveting prose of a spy novel than in the turgid text that usually emits from academia, the authors present an insider’s narrative of the major defeats and small victories in the century-old quest to provide all Americans, rich and poor, financial and physical access to timely health care without bankrupting their families."-Uwe E. Reinhardt, PHD, James Madison Professor of Political Economy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University