Product Description

This timely and engaging text explores the full gamut of health policy issues confronting the United States, ranging from Medicare and Medicaid, to the heated controversies surrounding health care reform, to the sleeping giant of long-term care. Notable features of the text include balanced and user-friendly discussions of: how the real-world policy process works, competing proposals for Medicare and Medicaid reform, the details of and the debates surrounding the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the challenges posed by an aging population, and the experiences of other countries grappling with similar problems. For close to a century, health policy issues have never been far from the center of the political agenda. James Brasfield traces the ideas behind the debates, examines the politics of health care, and offers possible scenarios for the decades ahead.