ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the issues that arise when a society considers providing for health care by offering health insurance, to some significant degree, at the public's expense. It considers the history of health care social insurance throughout the world, with emphasis on the United States. The chapter examines Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program, and their effects, and prospects and issues for the future. Social insurance programs can be broken down into five categories: poverty, old age, disability, health, and unemployment. The chapter discusses certain common features to characterize health-related social insurance programs in the United States. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the United States was the only industrialized country lacking a comprehensive health-related social insurance system. The United States came late to social insurance and to governmental health insurance in particular. The wider issue of social health insurance for the population as a whole had not yet been decided.
