Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health-Care Law and What It Means for Us All [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
Author: | Language: English | ISBN: B003K20QMM | Format: PDF, EPUB
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The Washington Post's must-read guide to health-care reform traces how President Obama and the Democrats achieved this historic overhaul, explains the legislation itself, and shows how it will impact individual Americans.
After a year-long political war, in March 2010 President Obama and the Democratic leaders of Congress achieved a victory that has eluded lawmakers for 75 years: an overhaul of America's health-care system. In this indispensible book, the staff of the Washington Post tells the story of health-care reform and explains what it means for the American people.
In the book's first section, the Washington Post's reporter embedded in the White House provides a behind-the-scenes narrative of how Obama and the Democrats pushed through health-care reform in the face of nearly unanimous Republican opposition. This section traces the tortured evolution of the legislation, showing how the Senate killed the public option, how the January 2010 victory of Republican senator Scott Brown left the Democrats scrambling, and how Democratic leaders ultimately negotiated among entrenched political factions-including disillusioned Democrats-to reach a compromise.
What does this final package include? The book's second section provides an accessible summary of the legislation that Obama signed into law in March 2010. In the third section, Washington Post writers answer our most pressing questions about the health-care legislation's immediate impact. Most importantly, how will the new law affect individuals-small-business owners, uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions, and twentysomethings on their parents' policies? This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how this legislation came into being and what the new health-care program means.
Contributors include: National Editor Kevin Merida, Associate Editor Steven Luxenberg, and staff writers Ceci Connolly, and Alec MacGillis.
Books with free ebook downloads available Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health-Care Law and What It Means for Us All
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 10 hours and 28 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: April 30, 2010
- Language: English
- ASIN: B003K20QMM
I'm a family physician that has followed the healthcare reform debate closely, dating well back into the Democratic primary season when Hillary and Obama were duking it out, dating even as far back as the failed Bill and Hillary Clinton first attempt during Bill Clinton's presidency. I found Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health Care Law to give a much richer historical perspective, and to give a much better analysis of the actual impact that the bill is likely to have, than was available from the fragmented and sensational mainstream media coverage.
The book is a collection of essays written by Washington Post reporters, followed by the actual text of the bill. The essays in the book are far more analytical and informative than what was typically available throughout the somewhat histrionic coverage of Republican and Democratic maneuvering to respectively block or pass the eventual bill. One could have been left with the impression, when it was all over but the shouting, that the resulting bill was weakened to the point of being inconsequential from the point of view of reform, and enormous regarding eventual cost. Read Landmark, and you'll have a different opinion on both those points.
What was useful in the book? The many failed historical efforts to provide some form of national healthcare coverage go back over 100 years, a battle that until this last month stymied many presidents (including Teddy Roosevelt). The historical review alone made the book a worthwhile read for me. Secondly, the authors make a convincing case that, much in contrast to the typical media coverage, this bill represents a deep and broad change in the American approach to healthcare for its citizens, far more so than the Medicare and Medicaid legislation.
"Landmark" by the staff of the Washington Post is a great book for learning about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Naturally it is difficult to write such a book and maintain political neutrality, but "Landmark" is as reasonably unbiased a book as you'll find on bookshelves today. Some of my reasons for recommending this book include:
-This book includes two main sections: the first describes the process of the bill becoming law and the second is a description of what the new law will change. Both sections are thorough and miss none of the important portions of the law.
-It makes clear how the law will affect different groups. Young, working age, and old, male and female, poor and rich, are all given treatment in this book.
-Health care before the law is explained so that the reader can see how things have changed. This is especially important for people who (like myself) don't have a full understanding of how programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and CHIP worked before the new law. Because the book explains where we're coming from, it is more clear where we are headed.
A few of the downsides of this book are:
-The authors constantly doubt many estimates, especially those done by the CBO, that suggest a potential problem with the new law. Although the book does give both sides of the debate their space, any official estimate that supports the new law is treated as undeniably true and any estimate that is critical of the benefits of the law is treated with undue skepticism.
-Some sections are confusing because the authors discuss various different plans that were proposed before explaining what ultimately passed. One example of this is how the law affects abortion providers.
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