The Accidental System: Health Care Policy In America

With the demise of the Clinton health care reform plan, the debate on health care changed but did not subside. From opinion pieces in newspapers to dinner-table conversations, the debate over whether the right to quality health care is a public right, akin to educating our children, or whether it is a private one, akin to life insurance, continues. InThe Accidental SystemMichael Reagan shows that in the American political context, health care is neither exclusively a public right nor a private privilege. This insightful policy study provides students with an excellent demonstration of how public policy intersects with private markets.

Michael D. Reagan is professor emeritus at the University of California at Riverside and has authored numerous publications on American government and politics, including books such as Regulation: The Politics of Policy and Curing the Crisis, and articles on health care in The New England Journal of Medicine.