History & evolution, focusing on system’s shortcomings. Private vs. public health insurance, need for reform, costs, managed care, AMA, Medicare, universal coverage, more.
The United States is the only industrialized nation, other than South Africa, that has no national health insurance program. Throughout this century attempts have been made to initiate such programs but all these efforts have been defeated by a combination of political attitudes and economic interests that favor private approaches to health care. The result has been that the American health care system is dominated by private insurance companies, a fee-for-services basis for medical care, and a largely private system of health care institutions. Health insurance has largely come to be the responsibility of employers and individuals rather than of any public authority. Despite some governmental involvement in hospital construction, medical research, public health, and targeted programs such as Medicaid…