DOCSLIB.ORG

Needed Interventions to Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Needed Interventions to Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law Population Health Needed Interventions to Reduce Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health David R. Williams Harvard University Valerie Purdie-Vaughns Columbia University Abstract Large racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in health persist in the United States. Eliminating these health disparities is a public health challenge of our time. This article addresses what is needed for social and behavioral interventions to be successful. We draw on important insights for reducing social inequalities in health that David Mechanic articulated more than a decade ago in his article “Disadvantage, Inequality, and Social Policy.” We begin by outlining the chal- lenge that interventions that have the potential to improve health at the population level can widen social inequalities in health. Next, given that there are racial differences in SES at every level of SES, we review research on race/ethnicity-related aspects of social experience that can contribute to racial inequalities in SES and health. We then explore what is needed for social and behavioral interventions to be successful in addressing disparities and consider the significance of race/ethnicity in designing and developing good policies to address this added dimension of inequality. We conclude that there is a pressing need to develop a scientific research agenda to identify how to build and sustain the political will needed to create policy to eliminate racial/ethnic health disparities. Keywords health disparities, interventions, race Introduction There are large racial variations in health in the United States. Acknowl- edging that the exclusive use of one measure of health inequity is value laden and that the choice of a measure of inequity can lead to different interpretations of the same data (Harper et al. 2010), table 1 presents both the absolute (the difference between two groups) and the relative (dividing the rate of one group by that of another) racial and socioeconomic status Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Vol. 41, No. 4, August 2016 DOI 10.1215/03616878-3620857 Ó 2016 by Duke University Press Published by Duke University Press Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 628 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law Table 1 Death Rates from All Causes, Age-Standardized, for Non-Hispanic Blacks and Whites, Aged 25–64, 2001 Black/White Black-White Education Blacks Whites Ratio Difference Men All 791.9 415.6 1.91 376.3 < 12 years 1,211.0 914.6 1.32 296.4 12 years 1,042.3 595.1 1.75 447.2 13–15 years 455.3 291.8 1.56 163.5 16 + years 386.5 216.2 1.79 170.3 Low-high difference 825 698 Low/high ratio 3.13 4.23 Women All 470.9 247.3 1.9 223.6 < 12 years 577.6 539.5 1.07 38.1 12 years 634.8 321.6 1.97 313.2 13–15 years 318.2 175.5 1.81 142.7 16 + years 318.7 147.4 2.16 171.3 Low-high difference 259 392.1 Low/high ratio 1.81 3.66 Source: Jemal et al. 2008 Notes: Rates per 100,000, United States. Low-high difference = lowest education category minus highest category; low/high ratio = lowest education category divided by highest category. (SES) differences in health, for all-cause mortality for non-Hispanic blacks and whites (Jemal et al. 2008). For both men and women, the absolute racial differences in death rates are substantial, with rates for blacks almost twice as high as those for whites. Other data reveal that racial groups characterized by legacies of social exclusion, economic disadvantage, and political or geographic marginalization have worse health than the dom- inant racial groups in virtually every society (Williams 2012). Although immigrants of all racial/ethnic groups tend to have better health than their native-born peers, marked declines are evident in the health of socioeco- nomically disadvantaged immigrants over time (Williams 2012). For exam- ple, US-born persons of Mexican ancestry have rates of heart disease and cancer that are almost twice as high as those of Mexican immigrants (Dominguez et al. 2015). These racial/ethnic differences in health are not new. In the late nine- teenth century, W. E. B. DuBois ([1899] 1967) documented large racial disparities in health in Philadelphia. He indicated that these differences in health could be explained by the poor living and working conditions of Published by Duke University Press Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law Williams and Purdie-Vaughns - Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health 629 African Americans. Consistent with DuBois’s analysis, a large body of scientific evidence confirms that SES, whether measured by income, education, occupational status, or wealth, is arguably the strongest pre- dictor of variations in health (Commission on Social Determinants of Health 2008). Table 1 also shows variations in mortality using education as a marker of SES. The education gaps in mortality for men and women of each racial group are generally larger, in absolute and relative terms, than the racial gaps. However, for men and women, at every level of education a racial gap persists. Notably, for both men and women, the relative but not the absolute racial gap is largest at the highest level of education. Thus these national data are not entirely consistent with the hypothesis of “diminishing returns,” which argues that blacks receive smaller health benefits from increasing SES compared to whites (Farmer and Ferraro 2005). Social inequity in health is one of the greatest public health challenges of our time, and there is interest in eliminating racial/ethnic disparities in health. Addressing disparities in health is one of the priorities of the National Institutes of Health, and the Healthy People 2010 initiative made eliminating health disparities one of its objectives. There is a growing consensus that since the key drivers of good health lie in the social deter- minants of health, we need to look “upstream” and intervene on the con- ditions of life in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces (Marmot et al. 2008; Braveman, Egerter, and Mockenhaupt 2011). Healthy People 2020 embraced these goals, calling for improving the health of all, eliminating disparities, and creating healthy social and physical environ- ments (US Department of Health and Human Services 2010). Accordingly, this article outlines the steps that are needed to develop a toolbox of cre- ative, rigorous, theory-informed interventions that would address the social determinants of health in order to improve the health of vulnerable popu- lations and reduce racial gaps in health. We draw heavily on, and extend in some cases, important insights for reducing social inequalities in health that David Mechanic (2002) articu- lated more than a decade ago. In an article titled “Disadvantage, Inequality, and Social Policy,” he raised a number of critical issues that had not received wide currency in the literature on racial disparities in health. Limited progress has been made in reducing racial disparities since then (Thomas et al. 2011), and Mechanic’s article is still timely today. In this article, we address what is needed for social and behavioral interventions to be successful. We begin by outlining the challenge that interventions that have the potential to improve health at the population level can widen social inequalities in health. Next we review research on race-related aspects of Published by Duke University Press Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 630 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law social experience that can contribute to racial inequalities in SES and health. We then explore what is needed for social and behavioral inter- ventions to be successful in addressing disparities, and we conclude that there is a pressing need to develop a scientific research agenda to identify how to build and sustain the political will needed to create policy to eliminate racial health disparities. Understanding the Problem and Evaluating Action A 2013 report from the Institute of Medicine documented that for nine key indicators of health status, Americans had worse health than their counterparts in sixteen high-income countries (Woolf and Aron 2013). Moreover, the report indicated that the poorer health of Americans compared to people in other rich nations was evident at all ages from birth to age seventy-five and that even the most advantaged Americans, those with high SES, healthy behaviors, and health insurance, had worse health than their peers in other affluent democracies. Thus health inter- ventions in the United States are needed to improve the health of all, even while they seek to reduce the large gaps in health by race/ethnicity and SES. Mechanic (2002) indicates that the development of sound policy requires a clear understanding of the dynamics that undergird social inequality because that will inform how, when, and for whom to implement population-level interventions. We discuss three dimensions of social inequalities that are important for health policy initiatives to attend to: the tension between reducing disparities and improving population health, the reality that SES inequalities in health reflect a gradient and not a threshold, and the need to address social inequalities linked to race/ethnicity that are not captured by SES. Improving Health versus Reducing Disparities One of Mechanic’s(2002) important insights was that improving the health of the US population would not inevitably lead to a reduction in social inequalities. He argued that enhancing overall population health and reducing disparities are objectives that can conflict with each other and that the strategies likely to have the greatest impact in improving population health are likely to widen SES-related disparities, including racial/ethnic disparities. Trend data on cigarette smoking and adolescent obesity illus- trate this challenge.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Teaching Health Policy and Politics in U.S. Schools of Public Health
    Teaching Health Policy and Politics in U.S. Schools of Public Health DEBORAH R. McFARLANE and LARRY J. GORDON INTRODUCTION MOST public health activities in the United States are funded by the public sector. The American political system guarantees that public resources will arrive by circuitous routes. This political system is federal (meaning that federal, state, and local agencies are involved); it is partisan (meaning, among other things, that different players will present different versions of the facts); and it involves many institutions (meaning that policy processes are usually slow and have many steps). In spite of its imperfections, government is an important source of revenue for many public health programs. In order to secure these public resources, public health practitioners must be adept at working within the political system. The recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) study, The Future of Public Health, however, found that many public health professionals are ignorant or disdainful of political processes. In fact, many public health professionals do not even participate in activities that they perceive as political. This lack of involvement has very serious consequences. The Future o f Public Health reported that one result is that many public policymakers do not consider appropriate technical advice when they are developing health policies (1). About 3,500 public health professionals graduate each year from U.S. schools of public health (2). The IOM report stated that the purpose of public health education should be to train
    [Show full text]
  • Jonas & Kovner's
    Knickman Jonas & Kovner’s 11th Edition Kovner Health Care Delivery in the United States Jonas & Kovner’s 11th James R. Knickman, PhD · Anthony R. Kovner, PhD Editors Edition Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS, FNYAS, Founding Editor Jonas & Kovner’s “Health care managers, practitioners, and students must both operate as efectively as they can within the daunting and con- tinually evolving system at hand and identify opportunities for reform advances… Health Care Delivery in the United States Health Care has been an indispensable companion to those preparing to manage this balance. Te present edition demonstrates once again why this volume has come to be so prized. It takes the long view – charting recent developments in health policy, and putting them side-by-side with descriptions and analysis of existing programs in the United States and abroad.” —Sherry Glied, PhD, Dean and Professor of Public Service, NYU Wagner, From the Foreword his fully updated and revised 11th edition of a highly esteemed survey and analysis of health care delivery in the Health Care Delivery in the United States keeps pace with the rapid changes that are reshaping our system. Fundamentally, this new edition Delivery Tpresents the realities that impact our nation’s achievement of the so-called Triple Aim: better health and better care at a lower cost. It addresses challenges and responses to the Afordable Care Act (ACA), the implementation of Obamacare, and many new models of care designed to replace outmoded systems. Leading scholars, practitioners, and educators within population health and medical care present the most up-to-date evidence-based information on health disparities, vulnerable populations, and immigrant health; nursing workforce challenges; new information technology; preventive medicine; emerging approaches to control health care costs; and much more.
    [Show full text]
  • China's Capacity to Manage Infectious Diseases
    China’s Capacity to Manage Infectious Diseases CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & Global Implications CSIS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES A Report of the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies 1800 K Street | Washington, DC 20006 PROJECT DIRECTOR Tel: (202) 887-0200 | Fax: (202) 775-3199 Charles W. Freeman III E-mail: [email protected] | Web: www.csis.org PROJECT EDITOR Xiaoqing Lu March 2009 ISBN 978-0-89206-580-6 CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & Ë|xHSKITCy065806zv*:+:!:+:! CSIS INTERNATIONAL STUDIES China’s Capacity to Manage Infectious Diseases Global Implications A Report of the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies PROJECT DIRECTOR Charles W. Freeman III PROJECT EDITOR Xiaoqing Lu March 2009 About CSIS In an era of ever-changing global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and Inter- national Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and practical policy solutions to decisionmak- ers. CSIS conducts research and analysis and develops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change. Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for America to survive as a nation and prosper as a people. Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preeminent public policy institutions. Today, CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. More than 220 full-time staff and a large network of affiliated scholars focus their expertise on defense and security; on the world’s regions and the unique challenges inherent to them; and on the issues that know no boundary in an increasingly connected world.
    [Show full text]
  • Coronavirus Politics
    Coronavirus The Comparative Politics Politics and Policy of COVID-19 EDITED BY Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta-Santos Coronavirus PolitiCs Coronavirus PolitiCs The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19 Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta-Santos, Editors University of Michigan Press ann arbor Copyright © 2021 by Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, and André Peralta- Santos Some rights reserved This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Interna- tional License. Note to users: A Creative Commons license is only valid when it is applied by the person or entity that holds rights to the licensed work. Works may contain components (e.g., photo graphs, illustrations, or quotations) to which the rightsholder in the work cannot apply the license. It is ultimately your responsibility to inde penden tly evaluate the copyright status of any work or component part of a work you use, in light of your intended use. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ For questions or permissions, please contact um . press . perms@umich . edu Published in the United States of Amer i ca by the University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca Printed on acid-f ree paper First published April 2021 A CIP cata log rec ord for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-i n-P ublication data has been applied for.
    [Show full text]
  • How Information About Race-Based Health Disparities Affects Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey Experiment About the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
    How information about race-based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Citation Harell, Allison and Evan Lieberman. "How information about race- based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States." Social Science & Medicine 277 (May 2021): 113884 © 2021 The Authors As Published https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113884 Publisher Elsevier BV Version Final published version Citable link https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130527 Terms of Use Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License Detailed Terms http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Social Science & Medicine 277 (2021) 113884 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Social Science & Medicine journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/socscimed How information about race-based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States Allison Harell a, Evan Lieberman b,* a Universit´e du Qu´ebec a` Montr´eal, Canada b Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: In this article, we report on the results of an experimental study to estimate the effects of delivering information Race about racial disparities in COVID-19-related death rates. On the one hand, we find that such information led to Racial prejudice increased perception of risk among those Black respondents who lacked prior knowledge; and to increased Health politics support for a more concerted public health response among those White respondents who expressed favorable Health policy views towards Blacks at baseline.
    [Show full text]
  • Environmental Health COURSE NUMBER: 590R CLASS NUMBER
    DATE OF THIS DRAFT: 3/5/2019 3:48 PM DEPARTMENT: Environmental Health COURSE NUMBER: 590R CLASS NUMBER: 001 SEMESTER: S 2019 CREDIT HOURS: 2 TIME: 1:00-2:50pm Monday ROOM: GCR L35 Politics of Public Health COURSE TITLE: INSTRUCTOR NAME: Richard Doner TA NAME: Sabrina Haque INSTRUCTOR / TA CONTACT INFORMATION: [email protected] EMAIL: [email protected] PHONE: Richard Doner (404) 727-7914 SCHOOL ADDRESS / OFFICE LOCATION: Tarbutton Hall 304 OFFICE HOURS: TTh 3:30-5 and by appointment BRIEF COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to help students, as future public health practitioners, understand and anticipate the ways in which politics – defined as interests, power, and institutions – affect public health interventions. This is thus a course on “applied” politics, not one on environmental justice or the broader political determinants of health outcomes. The course is structured around key stages in the policy process: agenda setting, policy formulation and adoption, implementation and evaluation. Using cases drawn from a range of countries, supplemented by several guest speakers, the course will explore specific kinds of institutional and political bottlenecks, potential solutions, and generalizability of lessons learned from specific cases. Rollins Competencies • Assess the impact of context-specific political factors on the nature and outcomes of public health interventions EH Competencies • Explain major policy issues in Environmental Health as they emerge and are addressed in diverse socio-political contexts GEH Competencies
    [Show full text]
  • The Seeds of Policy Change: Leveraging Diffusion to Disseminate Policy Innovations
    The Seeds of Policy Change: Leveraging Diffusion to Disseminate Policy Innovations Frederick J. Boehmke University of Iowa Abigail Matthews Rury University of Iowa Bruce A. Desmarais Pennsylvania State University Jeffrey J. Harden University of Notre Dame Abstract We conduct a series of simulations to compare how various strategies for seeding a policy in the American states affect the rate at which that policy spreads. Using empirically derived parameters of the policy diffusion process, we simulate the diffusion of a hypothetical policy after seeding the policy in just a handful of states. We compare these strategies to seeding the ten states the RWJF monitored during the states’ implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. We attempt to mimic the choices that policy advocates make when deciding which states to target with their resources. Our results indicate that focusing on innovative states, that is, those that tend to adopt new policies faster, offers a valuable boost in the speed of diffusion. Even better, though, is a strategy that targets policy leaders. Keywords policy diffusion, policy advocacy, networks Introduction Should policy advocates spread their efforts equally across governing units, or focus on a few key jurisdictions? Faced with limited resources, advocates typically choose to pursue their case in a limited number of forums. Yet, they ultimately wish to influence policy as broadly as possible by seeding a cascade of policy adoption across jurisdictions beyond the The authors would like to thank participants at the 2015 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Conference on Diffusion of ACA Policies Across the American States and comments received from the anonymous referees.
    [Show full text]
  • MPH-Public Health Practice Program Curriculum
    MPH-Public Health Practice Program Curriculum The MPH in Public Health Practice requires 42 credits or 14, 3-credit courses. The credits are split into 3 types of courses: 1. Required Core Courses (15 Credits) a. Biostats 540-Introduction to Biostatistics b. Epi 630-Principles of Epidemiology c. HPP 601-Application of Social and Behavioral Theory d. HPP 620-Introduction to the US Health Care System e. EHS 565-Environmental Health Practices 2. Required Research Courses (9 Credits) a. HPP 624-Research Methods b. HPP 698P-MPH Practicum c. HPP 691S-Final Culminating Capstone Project 3. Elective courses (18 Credits) See full descriptions below. Required core courses and required research courses are offered every spring and fall term. In addition, the practicum runs during the summer. There is no order in which students are required to complete courses. However, it is recommended that you complete the 5 core courses quickly upon matriculation, as these serve as foundation courses for the electives you will take. Elective courses are offered by the various Public Health Departments within the school and are usually offered once per year on a rotational basis. We currently offer 37 different elective choices and try to run at least 8 choices in spring and fall and 16-20 choices during the summer. Additionally, new courses are offered on a regular basis. If you have an idea for a new course, please contact the department. Electives offered by the Health Promotion and Policy Department HPP 507 (formerly HPP 590G)-Violence as a Public Health Problem- This course examines violence from a public health perspective in the United States and globally.
    [Show full text]
  • 001 CREDIT HOURS: 2 SEMESTER: Spring 2020 COURSE TI
    DEPARTMENT: Environmental Health COURSE NUMBER: 590R SECTION NUMBER: 001 CREDIT HOURS: 2 SEMESTER: Spring 2020 COURSE TITLE: Politics of Public Health CLASS HOURS AND LOCATION: TBA INSTRUCTOR NAME: Richard Doner INSTRUCTOR CONTACT INFORMATION EMAIL: [email protected] PHONE: 404-727-7914 SCHOOL ADDRESS OR MAILBOX LOCATION: Tarbutton 304 OFFICE HOURS TBA Teaching Assistant(s): Sabrina Haque (?) COURSE DESCRIPTION This elective course is designed to help students, as future public health practitioners, understand why and how the “best” interventions don’t always get proposed, adopted, and/or implemented. More specifically, the course is designed to help students anticipate the ways in which politics - defined as interests, power and institutions – affect public health interventions. As a course on “applied” politics, it complements courses on environmental justice or the social determinants of health by asking under what conditions solutions to problems actually get adopted. The course is structured around key stages in the policy process: agenda setting, policy formulation and adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Using cases (e.g. occupational health of migrant farmworkers in the U.S., field epidemiological training in L. America, smoking cessation in China, research on gun violence, family planning in Indonesia), the course explores institutional and political bottlenecks, potential solutions, and generalizability of lessons learned from Course: XXX 1 specific cases. The course thus makes use of qualitative methods to develop research
    [Show full text]
  • Health and the Environment
    SOC 193a -- ENVIRONMENT, HEALTH, AND SOCIETY Spring 2012 Mondays & Wednesdays, 5-6:20pm Mandel Center for the Humanities G03 Professor Sara Shostak Office: Pearlman 207 Office Hours: Wednesdays, 12-1:30pm, and by appt. Email: [email protected] Teaching Fellows: Julian Dell’Oso Office: Pearlman 104 Office Hours: Mondays, 12:30-1:30pm, and by appt. Email: [email protected] Catherine Tan Office: Pearlman 104 Office Hours: Mondays, 3-4pm, and by appt. Email: [email protected] Introduction This course draws on multiple sociological perspectives to examine two interrelated domains: 1) how dimensions of social organization shape the production and distribution of environmental health and illness in the United States; 2) how we know and regulate relationships between the environment and human health. Central to our examination is the question of how environmental health has been understood in various social worlds, at different historical moments, and by different (and often, competing) social actors. We will look at these questions across sites, including industry, clinics, neighborhoods, scientific laboratories, social movements, and government regulation and policy making. This course satisfies the Writing Intensive (WI) component of the general university requirements. Learning Goals In this course, students will 1. Critically examine different conceptualizations of “the environment” as it is relevant to human health and illness; 2. Gain insight into how dimensions of social organization (e.g., race, class, neighborhoods, industry, etc.) shape the distribution of the risk of environmental exposure and illness in the U.S.; 3. Master important sociological concepts – i.e., inequality, stratification, social movements, local knowledge – in the context of environmental health, policy, and activism.
    [Show full text]
  • Workshop Goals & Objectives
    Workshop Goals & Objectives: Why We are Here Wayne Cascio, MD, FACC, FAHA Director, Environmental Public Health Division National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Office of Research & Development, US EPA Research Triangle Park and Chapel Hill, NC Washington, DC September 28, 2016 Why We’re Here Today • Focus on preventing air pollution-related cardiopulmonary illnesses • Identifying new opportunities – transitions in health care and – new developments in data and technology • Tapping diverse disciplines to collaborate – moving environmental evidence into health care practice • Initial steps underway at EPA • Workshop goals and objectives Who is Here? Shared Mission of Many Stakeholders Healthcare Health Care Academic Systems Providers & Organizations Professional Organizations Local & State Health Insurers Government and NGOs Federal Environmental Health Agencies Population Health & Wellbeing – A Common Goal Philanthropic Public Health Organizations Trans-disciplinary Collaborations to Improve Health 3 What are the Facts? Air Pollution and Population Health Key Facts • High attributable health burden • Vulnerable subpopulations are at higher risk • No established threshold level for safe long-term exposure • Mechanisms of health effects are now known • Decreased long-term air pollutant exposures associated with improved cardiovascular outcomes Average PM2.5 2001-2010 3 Satellite-derived PM2.5 (µg/m ) http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/sdei-global-annual-avg-pm2-5-2001-2010 Giles LV et al. Environmental Health
    [Show full text]
  • It's the Health-Care Costs, Stupid!
    Studies in American Political Development, 14 (Fall 2000), 234–252. “It’s the Health-Care Costs, Stupid!”: Ideas, Institutions, and the Politics of Organized Labor and Health Policy in the United States Marie Gottschalk, University of Pennsylvania In 1978, organized labor formally abandoned its strident pragmatists compared to their European longstanding commitment to public-sector solutions counterparts, who have been more consistently ani- to achieve universal health care. Over the following mated by a larger social democratic vision. Further- fifteen years, it embraced private-sector solutions more, American unions have a long history of premised on a government mandate that would re- deferring to the Democratic party.3 Arguably, labor’s quire employers to pay a portion of their employees support for national health insurance had been pri- health insurance premiums. In many respects, this marily rhetorical since the early 1950s, when the in- about-face on the part of organized labor is neither dustrial unions began to rely on collective bargaining remarkable nor puzzling. After all, labor’s prior com- to achieve health-care security for their members. mitment to national health insurance1 had coexisted Once President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Edward Ken- with its deep and abiding attachment to the private nedy (D-MA) retreated from national health insur- welfare state of job-based benefits dating back to the ance in the face of the new anti-government, dereg- 1940s.2 American labor unionists have tended to be ulatory, deficit-conscious environment that emerged in the mid-to-late 1970s, one may conclude that labor I am grateful to Sheri Berman, Peter A.
    [Show full text]