Health care for some - Beatrix Hoffman

In Health Care for Some, Beatrix Hoffman offers an engaging
and in-depth look at America's long tradition of unequal access to
health care. She argues that two main features have characterized the US
health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly
American approach to the rationing of care. Health Care for Some shows
that the haphazard way the US system allocates medical services-using
income, race, region, insurance coverage, and many other factors-is a
disorganized, illogical, and powerful form of rationing. And unlike
rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down,
rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs,
resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world.While most histories of US health care emphasize failed policy reforms, Health Care for Some
looks at the system from the ground up in order to examine how
rationing is experienced by ordinary Americans and how experiences of
rationing have led to claims for a right to health care. By taking this
approach, Hoffman puts a much-needed human face on a topic that is too
often dominated by talking heads.