David Smith and Judith Moore wrote Medicaid Politics and Policy, “a connected narrative of the origins of the Medicaid program and its development” (vii), to help outsiders and insiders “who know only one part of the program or one phase in its development” (vii) “understand what is at stake; . . . what is possible” (vii). Their second edition, which adds events from the Great Recession through the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), certainly gave this insider, who participated in the formulation and implementation of eligibility policy in Smith's and Moore's “third and fourth periods” (vii–viii), a better understanding of the policy and politics of earlier periods as it will, no doubt, do for other active policy wonks. Perhaps more importantly, it provides an opportunity to ponder the program's tumultuous first fifty years and realize that Medicaid's story is America's story, that Medicaid is a sort of...

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