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Health Care Books:
Boomerang: Health Care Reform and the Turn Against Government

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Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company

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How did the debate on health reform turn into the most concerted attack on government in recent American history? In this incisive account, a prize-winning social scientist offers deep insights into the changing terrain of U.S. politics and public policy. Because of far-reaching changes in the Reagan era, Theda Skocpol shows, the Clinton Health Security bill became a perfect foil for antigovernment mobilization. Thus its defeat provides a unique window into the new political landscape.


PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS:

Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.10973
EAN: 9780393315721
ISBN: 039331572X
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 1997-04
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company


SIMILAR ITEMS:

• The Social Transformation of American Medicine
• Health Care Politics And Policy in America
• Voices of Dissent: Critical Readings in American Politics (7th Edition)
• Healthy, Wealthy, and Fair: Health Care and the Good Society
• Policy Making Process, The (3rd Edition) (Prentice-Hall Foundations of Modern Political Science Series)


CUSTOMER REVIEWS:

Skocpol does it again -
Theda Skocpol's "Boomerang" is nearly as interesting and sharp as her opinions. It's another winner.

Boomerang falls short. -
Boomerang by Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University is subtitled, "Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics." And indeed, this book is about politics, not about the reality of what went on in those crucial years. One comes out with the impression that the book was written to bring the author to the attention of the Clinton administration.

For example, she writes that Hillary and President Clinton had found an ideal "middle way" for health care reform, but that unfortunately, their plan was sabotaged by the conservatives in 1994 following the lead of Bill Kristol, former chief aide to Vice President Dan Quayle. She laments that the Democrats were not able to marshall their forces at a critical time to pass what she obviously considers the "good" legislation of the Health Security Act.

While she gives Bill Kristol considerable, unflattering credit, she fails to even mention the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), whose landmark lawsuit, AAPS v. Clinton, against the secret Health Care Task Force, derailed to a significant extent the Health Security Act of 1993. Neither AAPS nor the lawsuit appears in the text or index. The book is therefore quite incomplete. In just one chapter of his book, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, author David Brock gives by far a more accurate portrayal.

The book is an apologia for the ill-fated Health Security Act which carried with it a significant transfer of control of health care delivery from the private sector to the government bureaucrats and an assortment of central planners in the various levels of the bureaucracy, such as the Purchasing Cooperatives, the National Health Board, HHS, and numerous other alphabet soup government or quasi-government agencies that were to be established. The American people were correct in rejecting socialized medicine and the Clinton plan.

A fine, scholarly work on an important event -
This book promises to explain to the reader why the Clinton health care plan failed. The author does this rather well, pointing out how flaws in Clinton's "selling" of the program along with the disunity of sympathetic interest groups could not match the unity and purpose of Republican opponents. It is important to remember that Ms. Skocpol is a scholar, which can be good and bad. Her work is scholarly so it is well-proven (like a scholar) but also very narrow in scope (also, sadly, like a scholar). If you want an analysis of what went on behind closed doors in the 1993-94 fight or want a real discussion on the merits of health care reform, go elsewhere. But if you want an analysis solely on "why Clinton failed," this book does a very good job.

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