This course examines the history of efforts to reform the U.S. healthcare system from FDR to Obama. It will analyze the development, organization, financing, and delivery of the current system, as well as ongoing policy debates. The class will discuss chapters from The Heart of Power and timely articles on the most important domestic issue facing the president and Congress in 2010: healthcare reform. Students will learn about the evolution of the system and influences that have shaped American healthcare policy over the decades.

1. THE U.S. HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
OSHER - W20- TUESDAYS – 11:15AM-12:45PM
OVERVIEW and DESCRIPTION:
This course will study the efforts of all U.S. presidents from FDR to Obama to
reform the U.S. health care system. It will introduce the student to the development and
current functioning of the U.S. health care system regarding costs, coverage, quality and
outcomes. It will cover the organization, delivery and financing of the system and the
current policy debates about reforming this system.
The course should be especially interesting and relevant because the subject of
health care reform is one of the most important domestic issues facing President Obama,
Congress and the nation in 2010. We will follow the continuing debate over health care
during the term and study and analyze the bills going through Congress (although not all
2,000 pages of them).
COURSE OBJECTICES:
1. To understand what all presidents from FDR to Barack Obama have done or
not done to change and reform the U.S. health care system.
2. To understand the influence of significant political, economic, social and
historical influences on the shaping of the American health care system and
the making of health policy.
3. To know in a general way the evolution of the health care system in the 20th
century.
4. To understand how the U.S. political system deals with health policy.
5. To know the principal issues involved in the current debate about health
care reform.
6. To understand the overall organization, delivery and financing of health
care in the U.S. and how the system works.
7. To understand the relationships between the providers, payers, consumers
and regulators in the system.
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2. COURSE FORMAT:
A combination of lectures and class discussion. Chapters from The Heart of
Power, by Blumenthal and Morone, will be assigned each week along with several timely
handouts for class discussion. Students are encouraged to volunteer to lead class
discussions and to bring interesting and timely articles to the class.
Videos and audios will also be played when appropriate. These and the handouts
will not be included on the syllabus as they should be timely, up-to-date, and often from
current news.
Students are encouraged to make comments on personal or work experiences that
relates to ideas in the readings or lectures, to share your thoughts about ideas in the
readings or lectures that seem particularly interesting and insightful and to compare and
contrast any of the readings.
TEXTBOOK:
David Blumental and James A. Morone, The Heart of Power, Health and Politics
in the Oval Office, University of California Press, 2009.
OPTIONAL READINGS:
Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of Anerican Medicine, Basis Books, 1982.
Donald A. Barr, Introduction to U.S. Health Policy, The Organization, Financing,
and Delivery of Health Care in America, 2nd. Ed. Johns Hopkins Un. Press, 2007.
Theda Skocpol, Boomerang, Clinton’s Health Security Effort and the Turn
Against Government in U.S. Politics, W.W. Norton, 1996.
Haynes Johnson and David S. Broder, The System: The American Way of Politics
at the Breaking Point, Little Brown, 1996.
Bob LeBow, Health Care Meltdown, Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our
Failing System, JRI Press, 2002.
Regina Herzlinger, Who Killed Health Care?: America’s $2 Trillion Medical
Problem – and the Consumer-Driven Cure, McGraw-Hill, 2007.
Thomas Bedenheimer and Kevin Grumbach, Understanding Health Policy, A
Clinical Approach, McGraw-Hill, 2009.
Ezekiel Emanuel, Healthcare, Guaranteed, A Simple, Secure Solution for
America, Perseus Books Group, 2008.
Senator Tom Daschle, Critical, What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis,
St. Martin’s Press, 2008.
.R. Reid, The Healing of America, A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and
Fairer Health Care, The Penguin Press, 2009.
Howard Dean, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform, Chelsea
Green Publishing Co. 2009.
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3. DATE ASSIGNMENT
March 30 Introduction
Conclusion
Chapter 1 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The Enigmatic Angler
April 6 Chapter 2 – Harry S. Truman
We’ll Take the Starch Out of Them-Eventually
Chapter 3 – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Compassionate Conservative
April 13 Chapter 4 – John F. Kennedy
The Charismatic with a Stricken Father
Chapter 5 – Lyndon B. Johnson
The Secret History of Medicare
April 20 Chapter 6 – Richard Nixon
The Flower That Bloomed Only in the Dark
Chapter 7 – Jimmy Carter
The Righteous Engineer
April 27 Chapter 8 – Ronald Reagan
Socialized Medicine and the Working Stiff
Chapter 9 – George H.W.Bush
Stick to the Running Game
May 4 Chapter 10 – Bill Clinton
Kicking the Can Down the Road
May 11 Chapter 11 – George W. Bush
Bring it On – Reforming Medicare
Chapter ?? – Barack Obama
???????????????????
May 18 Term Paper Due
Final Exam
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4. NEWSPAPTERS, JOURNALS, ORGANIZATIONS
The New York Times – www.nytimes.com/edhealth2009.com
The Wall St. Journal – www.wsj.com
The Washington Post – www.washingtonpost.com
Health Affairs – www.healthaffairs.org
The Journal of the American Medical Association – www.ama-assn.org
The New England Journal of Medicine – http://www.nejm.org
Campaign for America’s Future – http://home.ourfuture.org/healthforall/
Cato Institute – http://www.cato.org/healthcare/index.html
Center for American Progress –
http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/healthprogress/
Center for Economic and Policy Research – http://www.cepr.net
Center for Studying Health System Change – http://www.hschange.com/
Families USA – http://www.familiesusa.org
Heritage Foundation – http://www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/
Kaiser Family Foundation – http://www.kff.org
Progressive Policy Institute – http://ppionline.org
The Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government– http://www.rockinst.org
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – http://www.healthreform.org
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