American Health Policy & Politics

Catalog description

This course examines the formation and evolution of American Health policy from an historical perspective. Concentrating on developments from the early twentieth century to the present, the focus will be political forces and institutions and historical and cultural contexts. Among the topics covered are periodic campaigns for national health insurance, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid and the further evolution of these programs, the rise to dominance of economists in the shaping of health policy, incremental and state-based vs. universal and federal initiatives, the formation and failure of the Clinton administration's health reform agenda, and national health reform during the Obama administration.