On July 30, 1965, President Johnson flew to Independence, Missouri to sign the Medicare bill. The new statute included two related insurance programs to finance substantial portions of the hospital and physician expenses incurred by Americans over the age of sixty-five. Public attempts to improve American health standards have typically precipitated bitter debate, even as the issue has shifted from the professional and legal status of physicians to the availability of hospital care and public health programs. In The Politics of Medicare, Marmor helps the reader understand Medicare's origins, and he interprets the history of the program and explores what happened to Medicare politically as it turned from a legislative act in the mid-1960s to a major program of American government in the three decades since. This is a vibrant study of an important piece of legislation that asks and answers several questions: How could the American political system yield a policy that simultaneously appeased anti-governmental biases and used the federal government to provide a major entitlement? How was the American Medical Association legally overcome yet placated enough to participate in the program? And how did the Medicare law emerge so enlarged from earlier proposals that themselves had caused so much controversy?

In recent years, bitter partisan disputes have erupted over Medicare reform. Democrats and Republicans have fiercely contested issues such as prescription drug coverage and how to finance Medicare to absorb the baby boomers. As Jonathan Oberlander demonstrates in The Political Life of Medicare, these developments herald the reopening of a historic debate over Medicare's fundamental purpose and structure. Revealing how Medicare politics and policies have developed since Medicare's enactment in 1965 and what the program's future holds, Oberlander's timely and accessible analysis will interest anyone concerned with American politics and public policy, health care politics, aging, and the welfare state.

The new edition of a 1973 work analyzing the political forces, interactions, and ideas that created welfare. Leaving the original work basically unchanged, the author has also added a second section that explores the political evolution of Medicare since its inception into the 1990s. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Medicare Politics examines how media coverage, political information, and political participation affect Medicare policy choices. This book is an excellent reference for political science literature concerning the impact of media, the roles of political information with respect to public opinion, and political participation. Each chapter provides analysis that expands political science and health services research by testing political science questions in a way that further our understanding of a significant health policy program affected by the political process: Medicare. The introduction ties the chapters together and discusses the importance of understanding Medicare politics as the impending retirement of the baby boom generation forces policymakers to grapple with how Medicare will support future generations. The first chapter shows how Medicare coverage varied throughout the 1995 debates concerning Medicare reform and links coverage with public opinion about policymakers. The second chapter demonstrates how knowledge of the Medicare program affected the public's support for Medicare reform options in 1995. The final chapter examines the impact of the political participation and mobilization of Medicare beneficiaries in recent presidential elections. Medicare Politics ends with a discussion of implications for future Medicare reform debates.

** Paying for Medicare received the American Risk and Insurance Association's Elizur Wright Award for itsoutstanding contribution to risk management and insurance literature.The Prospective Payment System and the Medicare Fee Schedule, two of the most effectively sustained and successful efforts at policy innovation in history continue to shape decisions about Medicare and cost containment efforts.Smith shows how particular policy alternatives were developed; why chosen or rejected; and how provider interests and American political institutions have shaped their design and implementation.

Examines political and economic strategy and offers a blueprint for the structural reform of Medicare