Disentitlement?: The Threats Facing Our Public Health Care Programs and a Rights-Based Response [Hardcover]

Timothy Stoltzfus Jost (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195151437 | ISBN-13: 978-0195151435 | Publication Date: April 10, 2003 | Edition: 1

No developed nation relies exclusively on the private sector to finance health care for citizens. This book begins by exploring the deficiencies in private health insurance that account for this. It then recounts the history and examines the legal character of America's public health care entitlements - Medicare, Medicaid, and tax subsidies for employment-related health benefits. These programs are increasingly embattled, attacked by those advocating privatization (replacing public with private insurance); individualization (replacing group and community-based insurance with approaches based on individual choice within markets); and devolution (devolving authority over entitlements to state governments and to private entities). Jost critically analyzes this movement toward disentitlement. He also examines the primary models for structuring health care entitlements in other countries - general taxation-funded national health insurance and social insurance - and considers what we can learn from these models. The book concludes by describing what an American entitlement-based health care system could look like, and in particular how the legal characteristics of our entitlement programs could be structured to support the long-term sustainability of these vital programs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a timely and important book. ...Efforts to privatize, devolve, and individualize health insurance may resonate with many lawmakers and members of the American public, particularly in these times of an uncertain economy and expanding government deficits; but Professor Jost's book reminds us that we need to carefully examine the premises and promises of these reform initiatives." --The Journal of Legal Medicine"

About the Author

Timothy S. Jost is at Washington and Lee University, School of Law, Lexington, VA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (April 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195151437
• ISBN-13: 978-0195151435
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #947,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > Medical Books > Administration & Medicine Economics > Medicaid & Medicare

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