On a steamy August morning, my friend, Bethany, was playing tennis when she felt a small pull in her back. Thinking nothing of it, she continued with her game. The next morning the pull had become an ache, and within a week the pain had so intensified that she had to limit her activity to walking to the mailbox. She called her general practitioner (GP), the gateway to her HMO, but he was unavailable for two weeks. When she finally got an appointment, her GP told her to take Advil, rest for two weeks, and then call back if her back hadn't improved. Back pain, he said, often healed itself. When there was no improvement three weeks later, her GP suggested she see a neurologist about an epidural. The neurologist was not available until November, so the GP made a second appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, who was available the...
Ensuring America's Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System
Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers
Jill Quadagno is the Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar Emerita and research associate in the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State University. She has published twelve books and more than eighty articles on aging, health, and social policy issues. Her books include One Nation, Uninsured: Why the US Has No National Health Insurance and The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. Her areas of specialization include social security reform, health policy, and public attitudes toward social programs. Her research has been featured on NPR, Harpers Magazine, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal.
Jill Quadagno; Ensuring America's Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System
Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers. J Health Polit Policy Law 1 April 2018; 43 (2): 325–334. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-4303538
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