The Politics of Medicare: Second Edition (Social Institutions and Social Change) [Paperback]

Theodore R. Marmor (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0202304256 | ISBN-13: 978-0202304250 | Publication Date: January 1, 2000 | Edition: 2

The Politics of Medicare is both a detailed account of how American came to have government health insurance for the elderly in the mid-1960s and a commentary on how the American political system dealt with deeply divisive social issues in the postwar period. For this second edition, Marmor has updated this earlier history, recounted with explicit analytical focus, and added a retrospective account of the operation of the program in the context of a far larger constituency of elderly patients and soaring costs of treatment.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Combining careful scholarship and sweeping insights, Marmor elucidates the politics behind one of America’s most important social programs." -- Social Science and Medicine

"Ted Marmor succeeds in helping us understand where Medicare has come from, but also where Medicare policy should be going." -- Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, Newton D. Baker Professor of Law and of Medicine and Public Health, Ohio State University

"This book provides invaluable insights for anyone interested in legislative initiatives." -- Graham Allison, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Aldine Transaction; 2 edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0202304256
• ISBN-13: 978-0202304250
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Medical Books > Administration & Medicine Economics > Medicaid & Medicare

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of a Kind, August 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Politics of Medicare (Paperback)

Have you ever wondered how Medicare-the federal health insurance program for the elderly and some disabled--became such a hot news topic, or why its administration and benefit package (the lack of outpatient drug coverage, for example) seems so inexplicable and byzantine?

If so, Theodore Marmor's reissue and revision of The Politics of Medicare is the book you want to pick up. There is no comparable book of its kind. Other scholars have studied Medicare's origins. Journalists trace the ebb and flow of contemporary Washington battles over Social Security and Medicare. But Marmor, a Yale professor and health policy guru, has written the definitive analysis of how the political battles waged over health insurance and Medicare from the 1940s onward powerfully shape the debate over the program to this day.

Wondering why Medicare, unlike almost all major private insurance plans, fails to cover most prescription drugs? The seeds of an answer may be found in the fears of 1960s legislators that the unpredictable cost of drugs could swamp the program at its outset. Unsure why medical expenditures took off in the 1960s and 1970s? Partly because doctors, who had led the charge against a government-sponsored social insurance program for the aged, benefited enormously from generous rules that were designed to assauge their fears about participation. Puzzled how Medicare became such a political hot potato after years of uninterrupted popularity? Marmor deftly shows how the Reagan administration reoriented widely-held fears about medical inflation into narrower fears about the supposedly unsustainable cost of public programs.

Another reason that this astute volume bears reading, or rereading: Marmor shows that elections can really matter. In the absence of the Democratic majority in Congress that emerged from the 1964 elections, passage of Medicare would have been delayed or forestalled altogether.

Within the cozy world of health policy analysts, Marmor is known for being a staunch proponent of national health insurance and a skeptic about the potential of HMOs and different forms of "managed competition" to control health costs and delivery quality care. His convictions enliven the text rather than detracting from its rigorous logic. This is a book that anyone interested in the politics of health care, and in American politics in general, will appreciate.

One thing alone mars this otherwise impressive book: its packaging. Sadly, any seven-year old with access to Microsoft Excel could have improved on the volume's rudimentary and unappealing charts and graphics. But the reader shouldn't let this superficial flaw detract from Marmor's important and unusually well-written book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Update to a Public Policy Classic, June 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Politics of Medicare (Hardcover)

Revised for the first time since 1973, Marmor's *The Politics of Medicare* still stands as the best single book on the political genesis of Medicare. In this valuable new edition, Marmor brings his classic analysis up to date while addressing the arguments of contemporary critics of the program. During an election year in which Medicare looms large, there is no better guide to the political past and future of America's public health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The (revised) Politics of Medicare: reviews, June 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Politics of Medicare: Second Edition (Social Institutions and Social Change) (Paperback)

I have read two reviews of this book in odd places, both of which are highly favorable. According to John Glasel of the Musician's Union in NYC, Professor Marmor's 'perceptive work analyzes the partisan squabbling that hs shaped Medicare over the years. The first part, a reprint of the first edition of this book, traces the history of the fight for government health insurance from the 1930s to the passage of Medicare in l965. The book's second part, completely new in this edition, brings the history up to date. Many scholars, according to Glasel, have long considered the first edition of this book the "definitive work on the subject. Its new edition should now be accorded that distinction." I agree with that judgement very much. So does Jeff Levine of WebMD's Washington Bureau, who described The Politics of Medicare as "a book for serious students of public policy," one which does not simply recite "historical facts" but analyzes the origins of Medicare and then, in a complex and thoughtful way, tells the story from l965 to l999.