Solving the health care problem : how other nations succeeded and why the United States has not / Pamela Behan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Behan, Pamela.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medical policy--United States.

Medical policy.

Right to health--United States.

Right to health.

Medical care, Cost of--Government policy--United States.

Medical care, Cost of.

Health insurance--United States.

Health insurance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (205 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The United States is the only industrialized democracy that allows its citizens to go entirely without health care for lack of funds or to be bankrupted by medical bills. Author Pamela Behan was confronted by the effects of this policy failure during her previous career as a nurse, and with Solving the Health Care Problem, she examines how it can be corrected. Behan explores American health care policy failure by looking at how two other, similar nations—Canada and Australia—managed to adopt health care protections, and compares their stories with events in the United States. Behan's systematic comparison of all three nations shows that the factors responsible for these different results center on the responsiveness of each nation's political institutions to its voters. In particular, Australia's parliamentary system and labor party and Canada's constitutional flexibility and national-provincial dynamics proved central to each nation's adoption of national health insurance. In contrast, similar efforts in the United States became less frequent and less ambitious after they were repeatedly blocked without even coming to a vote. These dissimilarities reveal the institutional and class issues that must be addressed for the United States to successfully confront the health care problem.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Tables

Introduction

What Can This Approach Tell Us?

Canada

Australia

The United States

A Second, Systematic Approach

Conclusions

Appendices

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-162) and index.

ISBN:

9780791481356

0791481352

9781429405065

1429405066

OCLC:

71851055