Health Insurance and The American Welfar

In this course, we will examine the American health insurance system in the context of the development of the welfare state. As health insurance is part and parcel of the social safety net, its provision was profoundly shaped by the supposed role the state should play in addressing poverty and managing risks, and by the political definition of who was worthy or unworthy of support by the state. We will learn that the struggles for national health insurance were interconnected with other welfare reform agendas, and that welfare state thinking structured the political imagination of a health insurance ideal. This course will cover major episodes of social welfare reforms, including the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the War on Poverty, the rise of neoliberalism, and the Affordable Care Act. By the end of the course, you should have a clear sense of how the development of the American welfare state shaped health insurance legislation—and, by extension, be able to apply the welfare state framework to analyze social welfare policies. To achieve these learning objectives, we will read classics of welfare state theory side by side with case studies of health insurance legislation. In your reading responses, you will practice applying theory to case analysis. Finally, you will write an essay analyzing a social welfare policy of your choice using the theoretical framework of the welfare state.