The Politics of Medicare

Book by Marmor, Theodore R.

This new edition makes an extraordinary contribution to the literature of public policy and political science.The four entirely new chapters provide more content than in any stand-alone book I know on the topics covered. By treating the politics of Medicare as an exemplary, major initiative inpublic policy, this book provides invaluable insights for anyone interested in legislative initiatives, especially in domestic policy, but also in foreign affairs.The final chapters reflections on puzzles and patterns has even broader implications valuable to readers interested in state, local, and national governments, both foreign and American. In sum: an extraordinary achievement.

-- Graham Allison, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Scholars have long regarded the first edition of The Politics of Medicare as the definitive analysis of the political forces, interactions, and ideas that created Medicare. The second edition promises to assume the same stature as an analysis of the political evolution of Medicare since its inception. This book will be greatly appreciated by students of political science as a case study of the political structures, alignments, and ideologies that have shaped one of our government's largest and most popular social programs. It deserves a much wider audience, however, because it challenges many of the ideological assumptions that have supported proposals to reform Medicare over the past decade. By debunking these assumptions -- that Medicare could ever become insolvent or that it needs to be updated as a managed competition-based program, for example -- Ted Marmor succeeds not only in helping us understand where Medicare has come from, but also in illuminat! ing where Medicare policy should be going.
-- Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, Newton D. Baker Professor of Law and of Medicine and Public Health, Ohio State University

Using the past to illuminate the present, Ted Marmor has produced an elegant, precise and scholarly accounting of Medicare's tangled politics. As usual, Marmor is on top of the news. Fresh struggles loom over not just health care for the elderly but over the role of medicine in society generally. Appearing at the dawn of new century, this is a wise and important book that will perform an invaluable service in helping America to confront its demographic future.
-- Finlay Lewis, Economics Correspondent, Copley News Service