Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Journal Title

Kanagawa Law Review

ISSN

0453-185X

Abstract

My purpose in this essay is to comment on national health policy in the United States over the past sixty years.  My conclusions are less optimistic than what I had hoped when I began my teaching and research career in the 1990s to be able to say in 2025.  In particular, the successful expansion of publicly supported health coverage via the passage of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or “Obamacare”) in 2010 seems to have triggered -- though I hesitate to say that it caused – a backsliding from broader commitments to clinical performance, population health, and social solidarity that it should have inspired the nation to pursue.  But the half-successes and the half-failures of the past quarter century can also serve as a reminder that – in health and in other areas of public policy – people should matter more than money.

First Page

121

Last Page

206

Volume Number

58

Issue Number

1

File Type

PDF

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