ILR Press
Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France
Key Metrics
- Paul V Dutton
- ILR Press
- Paperback
- 9780801474842
- 8.96 X 6.23 X 0.67 inches
- 0.82 pounds
- Medical > Health Policy
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Although the United States spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, more than 46 million people have no insurance coverage, while one in four Americans report difficulty paying for medical care. Indeed, the U.S. health care system, despite being the most expensive health care system in the world, ranked thirty-seventh in a comprehensive World Health Organization report. With health care spending only expected to increase, Americans are again debating new ideas for expanding coverage and cutting costs. According to the historian Paul V. Dutton, Americans should look to France, whose health care system captured the World Health Organization's number-one spot.
In Differential Diagnoses, Dutton debunks a common misconception among Americans that European health care systems are essentially similar to each other and vastly different from U.S. health care. In fact, the Americans and the French both distrust socialized medicine. Both peoples cherish patient choice, independent physicians, medical practice freedoms, and private insurers in a qualitatively different way than the Canadians, the British, and many others.
The United States and France have struggled with the same ideals of liberty and equality, but one country followed a path that led to universal health insurance; the other embraced private insurers and has only guaranteed coverage for the elderly and the very poor. How has France reconciled the competing ideals of individual liberty and social equality to assure universal coverage while protecting patient and practitioner freedoms? What can Americans learn from the French experience, and what can the French learn from the U.S. example? Differential Diagnoses answers these questions by comparing how employers, labor unions, insurers, political groups, the state, and medical professionals have shaped their nations' health care systems from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day.
Author Bio
Paul V. Dutton is a historian of health and social policy. He is author of Differential Diagnoses: A Comparative History of Health Care Problems and Solutions in the United States and France (Cornell, 2007) and Origins Of The French Welfare State (Cambridge, 2002) as well as numerous articles.
His op-ed pieces have appeared in The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times. Dr. Dutton has held research fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Brookings Institution, and a Fulbright fellowship to France. Dr. Dutton earned his BA at the University of California, Santa Cruz, MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and PhD from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Dutton is Professor of History and Adjunct Professor of Health Sciences at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
Education
- B.A. (1984) Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz;
- M.A. (1992) International Economics and European Studies, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University;
- Ph.D. (1997) European History, University of California, San Diego
Source: Northern Arizona University
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