The Politics of Health Policy

This text analyzes the socio-economic and political forces that explain the federal health policies of the US from 1980 to 1992. It discusses, in eight chapters, the major political and social forces responsible for the public policies of successive US administrations, with particular emphasis on health policy. Dr Navarro challenges some of the major positions held in the social and political sciences regarding the nature of power in Western capitalist developed countries and its impact on public policy. He argues that the welfare state continues to be extremely popular, that the causes of the US economic predicament cannot be attributed to the welfare state and that class, as a category of power, continues to have an undiminished relevance in explaining public policies in general and health policies in particular. In addition, he critically analyzes the federal health policies followed by Reagan, Bush and Clinton and by the Democratic-controlled Congress.