Plagues, Politics, and Policy is an overview of the major health challenges confronting American Indians and Alaska Natives over the past fifty years and is a case study of the federal government's attempt to provide medical services to a categorical group of people in the United States. While it is not a detailed Analysis of what socialized healthcare should or should not look like, it does examine the major social and political issues affecting the delivery of health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Since the end of the Second World War, economic assistance has turned into the extremely important instrument of regulating international relations. However, the significance of foreign aid becomes even greater for the periods of restructuring the system of international economic relations, when it is necessary to overcome nationalistic barriers in order to influence the character and direction of recipients' economic development. At the times of serious international political and military crises, foreign aid can change its destination from economic development to security goals. During Eisenhower's presidency the struggle between these two tendencies, which were formulated in the so-called 'development assistance' and 'mutual security' doctrines, was waged particularly aggressively and uncompromisingly, since the control over foreign aid allowed any party to direct, to a considerable degree, the entire world order building process.

After their sequestering on reservations across the West, American Indians suffered from appalling rates of disease and morbidity. While the United States Indian Service (Bureau of Indian Affairs) provided some services prior to 1908, it was not until then that the Indian Medical Service was established for the purpose of providing services to American Indians. Born in an era of assimilation and myths of vanishing Indians, the Indian Medical Service provided emergency and curative care with little forethought of preventive medicine. DeJong argues that the U.S. Congress provided little more than basic, curative treatment, and that this Congressional parsimony is reflected in the services (or lack thereof) provided by the Indian Medical Service. DeJong considers the mediocre results of the Indian Medical Service from a cultural perspective. He argues that, rather than considering a social conservation model of medicine, the Indian Service focused on curative medicine from a strictly Western perspective. This failure to appreciate the unique American Indian cultural norms and values associated with health and well-being led to a resistance from American Indians which seemingly justified parsimonious Congressional appropriations and initiated a cycle of benign neglect. 'If You Knew the Conditions' examines the impact of the long-standing Congressional mandate of cultural assimilation, combined with the Congressional desire to abolish the Indian Service, on the degree and extent of disease in Indian Country.