ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 1|16 pages

The Basic Dilemma

Is Health Care a Right or a Market Commodity?

chapter 2|14 pages

The Accidental System

chapter 3|26 pages

The Stakeholders and the Policy Process

chapter 4|16 pages

Beneath the Dilemmas, the Trilemma

chapter 5|16 pages

Medicare and Medicaid

The Entitlement Dilemmas

chapter 6|18 pages

Good Health at Lower Cost

How Do Other Nations Do It?

chapter 7|19 pages

Managed Care

Boon or Bane? Both!

chapter 8|20 pages

Controlling Costs

Mission Impossible?

chapter 9|15 pages

A Sensible Wild Idea

Universalize Medicare