Hospital City, Health Care Nation : : Race, Capital, and the Costs of American Health Care / / Guian A. McKee.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
• VerfasserIn: McKee, Guian A.,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Politics and Culture in Modern America
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (392 p.)

Hospital City, Health Care Nation recasts the story of the U.S. health care system by emphasizing its economic, social, and medical importance in American communities. Focusing on urban hospitals and academic medical centers, the book argues that the country’s high level of health care spending has allowed such institutions to become vital, if often problematic, economic anchors for communities. Yet that spending has also constrained possibilities for comprehensive health care reform over many decades, even after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. At the same time, the role of hospitals in urban renewal, in community health provision, and as employers of low-wage workers has contributed directly to racial health disparities.Guian A. McKee explores these issues through a detailed historical case study of Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital while also tracing their connections across governmental scales—local, state, and federal. He shows that health care spending and its consequences, rather than insurance coverage alone, are core issues in the decades-long struggle over the American health care system. In particular, Hospital City, Health Care Nation points to the increased role of financial capital after the 1960s in shaping not only hospital growth but also the underlying character of these vital institutions. The book shows how hospitals’ quest for capital has interacted with structural racism and inequality to shape and constrain the U.S. health care system. Building on this reassessment of the hospital system, its politics, and its financing, Hospital City, Health Care Nation offers ideas for the next steps in health care reform.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Abbreviations Used in Text -- Introduction. Crisis in the Hospital City—and the Health Care Nation -- PART I. BUILDING THE HOSPITAL CITY -- 1. The Public Foundations of the Hospital City -- 2. Urban Renewal in the Hospital City -- 3. Medicare, Hospitals, and “the Gold at Fort Knox” -- 4. Johns Hopkins in the Hospital Metropolis -- PART II. LIVING WITH THE HOSPITAL CITY -- 5. The Hospital City and the National Health Insurance Struggle -- 6. Wages, Jobs, and Cost in the Hospital City -- 7. Hospital Cost Control in Maryland -- 8. To Stay or Go, and How to Pay for It -- PART III. COSTS OF THE HOSPITAL CITY -- 9. “The Dream Shall Never Die” . . . but It May Be Compromised -- 10. “A New Emphasis on Market Strategies” -- 11. Markets, Medicaid, and Mergers -- Conclusion. Reform in the Hospital City—and the Health Care Nation -- Abbreviations Used in Notes -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments