Diminishing Democracy in Health Policy: Partisanship, the Courts, and the End of Health Politics as We Knew It.

Despite unprecedented partisanship, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) traced a familiar political arc: a loud debate full of dramatic symbols, a messy legislative process, clashes over implementation, a slow rise in popularity, entrenchment as part of the health care system, and growing support that blocked Congress from repealing. The politics of the ACA looked, from one angle, like a louder version of health politics as usual. But something new was stirring.

The Arc Of History Bends Toward Coverage: Health Policy At A Crossroads.

There is a formidable historical arc to health care policy: Every modern US president has sought to expand coverage. Democrats eagerly placed the issue on the agenda. Republicans vociferously opposed Democratic proposals but countered with creative ways to expand coverage on their own terms.

Partisanship, Dysfunction, and Racial Fears: The New Normal in Health Care Policy?

Partisan politics snarled both the passage and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This essay examines partisanship's effects on health policy and asks whether the ACA experience was an exception or the new political normal. Partisanship itself has been essential for American democracy, but American institutions were not designed to handle its current form-ideologically pure, racially sorted, closely matched parties playing by "Gingrich rules" before a partisan media.

Presidents and health reform: from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Barack Obama.

The health care reforms that President Barack Obama signed into law in March 2010 were seventy-five years in the making. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.

Nine lessons for health reform: or will we finally learn from the past?

Health care reform sits, once again, in the eye of the political storm. This article, based on an analysis of past health care debates, offers nine historical lessons for contemporary reformers. We describe the most important political do's and don'ts.

Obesity, courts, and the new politics of public health.

Health care politics are changing. They increasingly focus not on avowedly public projects (such as building the health care infrastructure) but on regulating private behavior. Examples include tobacco, obesity, abortion, drug abuse, the right to die, and even a patient's relationship with his or her managed care organization.

Power to the people? Restoring citizen participation.

This article investigates a lost ideal--citizen participation in health policy. We begin by mapping the different types of participation. We then suggest what direct citizen action has achieved in the past, why it ought to be restored today, and how we might go about reviving it.

The politics of obesity: seven steps to government action.

Concern is rapidly growing about obesity rates in the United States. This paper analyzes the political consequences. Despite myths about individualism and self-reliance, the U.