Origins of American Health Insurance

How did the United States come to have its distinctive workplace-based health insurance system? Why did Progressive initiatives to establish a government system fail? This book explores the history of health insurance in the U.S. from its roots in the nineteenth-century sickness funds offered by industrial employers and labour unions to the rise of group plans such as Blue Cross Blue Shield in the mid-twentieth century. Historians generally view the failure to establish universal health insurance during the first half of the twentieth century as an indicator of the political clout of insurers, employers, unions, and physicians who thwarted Progressive efforts. But the reasons are actually simpler, John Murray contends in this book. Careful analysis of the workings of industrial sickness funds suggests that workers rejected plans for compulsory state insurance because they were largely content with existing private plans. Murray revises our understanding of the evolution of health care insurance in the U.S. and discusses the implications of that history in the ongoing debates of today.

ISBN 0300120915   Pages 336 ISBN13 9780300120912 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Yale University Press   Weight (grammes) 653 Imprint Yale University Press   Published in New Haven Format Hardback   Series title Yale Series in Economic and Financial History Publication date 20 Nov 2007   Height (mm) 234 Library of Congress 2007015555   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 368.38200973   Spine width (mm) 27 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly

		Preface
Pt. 1		Sickness Funds in the Progressive Era
1		Industrial Sickness Funds		3
2		Political Economy of Progressive-Era Sickness Insurance		16
3		Progressive Ideals: Private and Public Insurance in Europe		38
Pt. 2		Rise and Operation
4		The Rise of Sickness Funds		65
5		How Establishment Funds Worked		92
6		How Labor Union Funds Worked		123
7		Workers' Decisions to Save or Buy Insurance		145
8		Workers' Decisions to Work or Stay Home Sick		169
Pt. 3		Innovation and Decline
9		Insured Workers' Health in the Great Depression		203
10		Actuarial Science and the Decline of Sickness Funds		218
11		Succession in the Forest of Health Care Reform		237
Appendix A		Data Sources		249
Appendix B		Additional Regressions for Chapter 7		252
		Notes		259
		Bibliography		289
		Index		305

"One of the book''s most admirable and compelling aspects is the respectful way Murray treats those with whom he disagrees. In this way, "Origins of American Health "Insurance is a model of balance and thoroughness. . . . Murray''s book is simply the best, most balanced, and most thorough treatment of the topic available. I cannot recommend it more highly or with any greater enthusiasm. "Origins of American Health Insurance" is simultaneously a lesson in economics and a lesson in history."--Werner Troesken, "The Independent Review"--Werner Troesken "The Independent Review "

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