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The Political Life of Medicare (American Politics and Political Economy)
 
 
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The Political Life of Medicare (American Politics and Political Economy) (Paperback)

by Jonathan Oberlander (Author) "On September 14, 1995, Republican congressional leaders unveiled their plan to overhaul Medicare, the federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled Americans..." (more)
Key Phrases: hospitalization insurance trust fund, catastrophic insurance legislation, trust fund crises, United States, Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, Blue Cross (more...)
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Product Description
In recent years, bitter partisan disputes have erupted over Medicare reform. Democrats and Republicans have fiercely contested issues such as prescription drug coverage and how to finance Medicare to absorb the baby boomers. As Jonathan Oberlander demonstrates in The Political Life of Medicare, these developments herald the reopening of a historic debate over Medicare's fundamental purpose and structure. Revealing how Medicare politics and policies have developed since Medicare's enactment in 1965 and what the program's future holds, Oberlander's timely and accessible analysis will interest anyone concerned with American politics and public policy, health care politics, aging, and the welfare state.


From the Inside Flap
In recent years, bitter partisan disputes have erupted over Medicare reform. Democrats and Republicans have fiercely contested issues such as prescription drug coverage and how to finance Medicare to absorb the baby boomers. As Jonathan Oberlander demonstrates in The Political Life of Medicare, these developments herald the reopening of a historic debate over Medicare's fundamental purpose and structure. Revealing how Medicare politics and policies have developed since Medicare's enactment in 1965 and what the program's future holds, Oberlander's timely and accessible analysis will interest anyone concerned with American politics and public policy, health care politics, aging, and the welfare state.


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Product Details
Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
On September 14, 1995, Republican congressional leaders unveiled their plan to overhaul Medicare, the federal health insurance program for elderly and disabled Americans. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
hospitalization insurance trust fund, catastrophic insurance legislation, trust fund crises, trust fund shortfalls, federal actuaries, bankruptcy crises, trust fund crisis, trust fund exhaustion, presidential sponsorship, intergenerational equity concerns, congressional policymakers, payroll tax financing, actuarial forecasts, physician payment reform, trust fund financing, supplemental premium, professional sovereignty, federal health insurance, health insurance proposals, premium support, hospitalization coverage, professional standard review organizations, general revenue financing, beneficiary premiums, actuarial balance
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, Blue Cross, President Clinton, Senate Finance Committee, Congressional Budget Office, House of Representatives, Wilbur Mills, New Deal, Republican Medicare, Bill Thomas, Democratic Party, Health Care Financing Administration, Newt Gingrich, Ronald Reagan, Wilbur Cohen, Bill Clinton, White House, Balanced Budget Act, Lyndon Johnson, National Bipartisan Commission, President Reagan, Prospective Payment Assessment Commission, Republican Congress, American Medical Association
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Remarkably clear, August 7, 2005
By Raman (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
Usually, I cannot get through books on the social sciences. They are too long for me, and their repetitive, unfocused writing style makes it hard to me to see how the author is structuring his or her arguments. This book, assigned by my political science professor as the best book on Medicare, is a welcome counterexample to that generalization. Jonathan Oberlander covers the political history of Medicare with clarity, gusto, and (most importantly for me) concision. The body of the text takes a mere 196 pages. The book is extensively annotated with 48 pages of notes. It is printed on good paper, has an attractive cover, and is well proofread and typeset.

The bulk of the book covers the history of Medicare from its inception in 1965 to the present. Oberlander's thesis throughout the book is that, after much political debate prior to its enactment, Medicare was ruled by a bipartisan legislative consensus from 1965-1995 which subsequently unraveled in Gingrich's Republican Congress. He analyzes the consensus by breaking it into three aspects - benefits, financing, and regulation - and showing how each aspect involved large changes in the program with little controversy over this thirty-year period. (Oberlander tends to dissect ideas into lists like this at every scale, so much of the book reads like a huge outline. While those accustomed to more fluid prose may find this style pedantic, it leaves no doubt as to how Oberlander's analysis is structured and contributes greatly to the book's clarity in my opinion.) After the three chapters on benefits, financing, and regulation, Oberlander has a short but terrific chapter debunking the application of various monolithic political theories to Medicare. He argues that American national government, contrary to prevailing scholarly thought, is capable of great independence from external forces in its creation of policy. While Oberlander warns that "this chapter is intended for political scientists," its extraordinary logical clarity made it easy to follow, even for a chemist like me.

Unfortunately, the book gets more uneven in the last chapter, which covers the politics of Medicare since 1995. This 40-page chapter sapped enough of my motivation that it took me two months to finish. Oberlander's didactic analysis verges on murky and disorganized in places, and his liberal political outlook, which merely peppers his excellent writing with a bit of personal color in the first four chapters, starts to get distracting. He repeats the notion that "1995 changed everything about Medicare" so many times that I began to wonder whether he believes his own thesis. It was a disappointing end to an otherwise fine book.

But overall, it's impressive how well Oberlander brings a potentially dull subject to life. For anyone interested in Medicare (or American politics in general), this book is worth reading.
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