1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460027903321

Autore

Dutton Paul V

Titolo

Differential diagnoses [[electronic resource] ] : a comparative history of health care problems and solutions in the United States and France / / Paul V. Dutton

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : ILR Press/Cornell University Press, 2007

ISBN

0-8014-6047-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (267 p.)

Collana

The culture and politics of health care work

Disciplina

362.1

362.109

Soggetti

Social medicine - United States - History - 20th century

Social medicine - France - History - 20th century

Medical policy - United States - History - 20th century

Medical policy - France - History - 20th century

Medical care - United States - History - 20th century

Medical care - France - History - 20th century

Health insurance - United States - History - 20th century

Health insurance - France - History - 20th century

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Common Ideals, Divergent Nations -- 2. Health Insurance and the Rise of Private-Practice Medicine, 1915-1930 -- 3. Health Security, the State, and Civil Society, 1930-1940 -- 4. Challenges and Change during the Second World War, 1940-1945 -- 5. Labor's Quest for Health Security, 1945-1960 -- 6. The Choice of Public or Private, 1950-1970 -- 7. Cost Control Moves to the Fore, 1970-2000 -- 8. Hospitals and the Difficult Art of Health Care Reform, 1980-Present -- 9. Les Jeux Sont Faits? 2000-Present -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Although the United States spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, more than 46 million people have no insurance coverage, while one in four Americans report difficulty paying for



medical care. Indeed, the U.S. health care system, despite being the most expensive health care system in the world, ranked thirty-seventh in a comprehensive World Health Organization report. With health care spending only expected to increase, Americans are again debating new ideas for expanding coverage and cutting costs. According to the historian Paul V. Dutton, Americans should look to France, whose health care system captured the World Health Organization's number-one spot.In Differential Diagnoses, Dutton debunks a common misconception among Americans that European health care systems are essentially similar to each other and vastly different from U.S. health care. In fact, the Americans and the French both distrust "socialized medicine." Both peoples cherish patient choice, independent physicians, medical practice freedoms, and private insurers in a qualitatively different way than the Canadians, the British, and many others. The United States and France have struggled with the same ideals of liberty and equality, but one country followed a path that led to universal health insurance; the other embraced private insurers and has only guaranteed coverage for the elderly and the very poor.How has France reconciled the competing ideals of individual liberty and social equality to assure universal coverage while protecting patient and practitioner freedoms? What can Americans learn from the French experience, and what can the French learn from the U.S. example? Differential Diagnoses answers these questions by comparing how employers, labor unions, insurers, political groups, the state, and medical professionals have shaped their nations' health care systems from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day.