Governing Health or The Fragmented World of the Social

Governing Health: The Politics of Health Policy

Author: Carol S Weissert

Governing Health examines health care policy making from a long-term, political perspective, describing how Congress, the president, special interest groups, bureaucracy, and state governments help define health policy problems and find politically feasible solutions. The third edition of this pathbreaking book is updated to cover recent legislative efforts, including the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Praise for previous editions of Governing Health

Nancy Milio

This is a political science book that presents a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the institutions and process of healthcare policymaking. It is based on a review and assessment of the literature and on some original research on the changes in healthcare policymaking over the last 50 years, through the mid-1990s. It includes a comparison of Federal and state policymaking and concludes with a prognosis for healthcare reform. The purpose is to provide a text written by political scientists for use in health politics courses. The authors are well-qualified, having done extensive and recognized research in healthcare policymaking. The book is appropriate for many audiences interested in understanding and acting in healthcare policy arenas. The book has a moderate number of charts, tables, and boxes that synthesize the text. It also has an extensive, 23-page bibliography and a list of acronyms. The font is rather small. This text provides interested audiences with as much useable detail and insight as they would need for applied purposes in the fields of health policy analysis, action, and education. It should prove a lasting reference for several years for theoretical and practical purposes in healthcare policy arenas as they now move between Federal and state governments, between public and private sectors, between elected officials and private interest groups, both commercial and voluntary, professional and public interest. The changing impact of the AMA over 50 years is among the policy influences that are highlighted.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Nancy Milio, PhD, FAAN, FAPHA (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Public Health)
Description: This is a political science book that presents a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the institutions and process of healthcare policymaking. It is based on a review and assessment of the literature and on some original research on the changes in healthcare policymaking over the last 50 years, through the mid-1990s. It includes a comparison of Federal and state policymaking and concludes with a prognosis for healthcare reform.
Purpose: The purpose is to provide a text written by political scientists for use in health politics courses. The authors are well-qualified, having done extensive and recognized research in healthcare policymaking.
Audience: The book is appropriate for many audiences interested in understanding and acting in healthcare policy arenas.
Features: The book has a moderate number of charts, tables, and boxes that synthesize the text. It also has an extensive, 23-page bibliography and a list of acronyms. The font is rather small.
Assessment: This text provides interested audiences with as much useable detail and insight as they would need for applied purposes in the fields of health policy analysis, action, and education. It should prove a lasting reference for several years for theoretical and practical purposes in healthcare policy arenas as they now move between Federal and state governments, between public and private sectors, between elected officials and private interest groups, both commercial and voluntary, professional and public interest. The changing impact of the AMA over 50 years is among the policy influences that are highlighted.

Booknews

Health policy, like all exercises in politics, is about the wielding of power, note Carol Weissert (political science, Michigan State U.) and William Weissert (health management and policy, U. of Michigan). They present the history of U.S. health care policy as the product of the American system of government, combining ideological polarization and party politics, the dynamics of congressional needs for reelection and vote-trading, the discretionary power of the bureaucracy in its dealings with government and the public, the well- financed influence of health interests, and the budget and reconciliation process. Their work is divided into two sections that first describe the institutions of government and the interactions of structures and motivations and then explore the actual policy process itself. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Presenting health care policy as the product of the American system of government, this volume provides a synthesis of political science research on the institutions of government and the policy process, and an extensive review of the policies that have governed health care for a generation or more. Paper edition (unseen), $24.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments
	Introduction	1
I	Health Policy and Institutions
1	Congress	15
2	The Presidency	72
3	Interest Groups	110
4	Bureaucracy	154
5	States and Health Care Reform	192
II	Health and the Policy Process
6	The Policy Process	245
7	Applying Theory to Reality: The Case of the Balanced Budget Act	281
	Conclusion	318
	List of Abbreviations	329
	References	331
	Index	361

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The Fragmented World of the Social: Essays in Social and Political Philosophy

Author: Axel Honneth

The essays in this book weave together insights and arguments from such diverse traditions as German critical theory, French philosophy and social theory, and recent Anglo-American moral and political theory, offering a unique approach to the political and theoretical consequences of the modernism/postmodernism discussion. Through an analysis of central themes in classical Marxism and early critical theory, the author shows how recent work in a variety of traditions converges on the need to question familiar distinctions between material production and culture, the public and the private, and the political and the social, and to reconsider the conceptions of agency and power that have informed them.