Health care for some
Subtitle: rights and rationing in the United States since 1930
By: Beatrix Hoffman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press; University Of Chicago Press; The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9780226348032; 9780226348056
Subjects: History; Health services accessibility; Right to health; Health care rationing
Description: The 2010 Affordable Care Act is a sweeping reform to the US health care system. Hoffman offers an engaging and 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 type of rationing. 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue : rights and rationing before 1930; title: The struggle for health care in the Great Depression. A crisis of access ; Social security without health security; title: Prosperity and exclusion, 1941-64. Health care at war ; Rights to refuse : the triumph of the hospital ; Rationing by coverage : the rise of private health insurance; title: New entitlements and new movements, 1965-80. Entitlements but not rights : Medicare and Medicaid ; The rise of health care activism; title: Rights vs. markets, 1981-2008. Emergency rooms and epidemics ; At the breaking point; title: Epilogue : rights, rationing, and reform.