The Accidental System: Health Care Policy in America

By Michael D. Reagan

Book Overview

With the demise of the Clinton health care reform plan, the debate on health care changed but did not subside. From opinion pieces in newspapers to dinner-table conversations, the debate over whether the right to quality health care is a public right, akin to educating our children, or whether it is a private one, akin to life insurance, continues. In The Accidental System Michael Reagan shows that in the American political context, health care is neither exclusively a public right nor a private privilege. This insightful policy study provides students with an excellent demonstration of how public policy intersects with private markets.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813399963
• ISBN13: 9780813399966
• Release Date: April 1999
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 196 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Insightful, accessible, and right-on

No one seems to be able to clarify, simplify and reduce to essentials the enormous political and social problems with healthcare in our country like Michael Reagan. This is not the first time Professor Emeritus Reagan has approached the topic with success, but in this distillation are perhaps his best suggestions to logically proceeed with correcting our healthcare woes. Agree or disagree with his well supported premises if you wish; nobody I have read has a better grasp of the fundamental issues, or expresses them with more clarity. In a unique way, this political scientist has infiltrated the inner sanctum of clinical care, explained the problems and proposed some solutions that make great sense. This book is a wonderful addition to the understanding of our American 'accidental system' of very expensive, often marginally effective, generally unbalanced health care practices, but without the rancor, biases and vehemence that often accompanies attempts like this by those with less skill and insight. Very nicely written and produced. Jeffrey S. Rose, MD