Books & Articles

This page is devoted to books and articles relevant to political economy and finance at the intersection of economics and politics.  For instance, the privatized nursing home industry is a result of conservative politics and has evolved in sync with macroeconomics and the growing dominance of the financial sector.

I must admit that I have been neglecting this page of my blog.  In fact, it has been pathetic.  I promise to now turn attention to writing about meaningful books and articles that progressives will find helpful in understanding the pervasive injustice in the economic system – which subsumes the health care system – that is, every day and with every election, lowering our quality of life.

HEALTH CARE

Robert Stevens & Rosemary Stevens (2004), Welfare Medicine in America: A Case Study of Medicaid. New Brunswick (USA): Transaction Publishers

Although “welfare medicine” seems like a nice idea, it really isn’t.  What you will learn by reading this book is that we humiliate welfare beneficiaries by making them prove they are too poor to care for themselves and forcing them to seek the beneficence of the wealthier classes for  benefit of the health care providers as much as for the health care needs of the “poor” uninsured..  Even that disgusting health care concept would have failed in the 1960s had Wilbur Mills, the corrupt and powerful chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, not been subjected to a “Sunday come to Jesus meeting” conducted by the AMA, the hospital industry, and other various and sundry health care business power houses.  They said, “Wilbur, stand back, this will be good for us.”  We all remember Wilbur most for his drunken escapades with stripper Fanny Fox, “The Argentine Fire Cracker.”

Monte M. Poen (1979), Harry S. Truman Versus the Medical Lobby:  The Genesis of Medicare.  Columbia, MO: The University of Missouri Press.

This work by Monte Poen will shed some light on the role of the AMA and other institutions and individuals with a vested interest in a “for profit” and “out of reach of the poor/many middle class Americans” health care system.  By reading Poen’s history, you will see that the Tallgrass Activist didn’t make stuff up about the role of the AMA in our disgusting health care system as it has evolved into the current Century.

Arnold Relman (1980), “The New Medical-Industrial Complex,” New England Journal of Medicine 303: 963.

Just in case you think that The Tallgrass Activist coined the phrase “medical-industrial complex” this article will dispel that notion.  If you have access to the NEJM, you should read this article.  If you don’t have access to medical journals – as most people don’t – then you should ask yourself why medical journals are not accessible to the people.  Why has even medical knowledge, which should be available free to everyone, become a for profit business to serve big institutions and wealthy individuals?

Ira Rutkow (2010), Seeking The Cure: A History of Medicine in America.  New York:  Scribner.

Dr. Rutkow, a surgeon and historian, explains the development of American medicine from the Colonial period through present day.  For readers who would like to have a sense of the entire history of medicine in the U.S. this will be one of the most fascinating and interesting accounts you will find.  You will also have a better understanding of how we have arrived at the current untenable approach to health care delivery.

Donald L. Bartlett & James B. Steele (2006), Critical Condition – How Health Care in America Became Big Business – and Bad Medicine.  New York:  Broadway Books.

If you want to understand how the healing arts and caring for sick people turned into big business with patients as commodities, this book will meet your needs.

Howard Dean (2009),  Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform.  White River Junction, Vermont:  Chelsea Green Publishing Company.

Thanks to a gift of this book from Nancy Hiebert, I have had a chance to read Dr. Dean’s clear, detailed, and sensible description of a viable public option.  The entire book is enlightening and will give readers a grasp of the broader issues involved in the health care debate.  Chapter 6, “Reform without a Public Health Insurance Option Is Not Real Reform,” will clarify why the public insurance option we are likely to get is not real reform.  Thanks Nancy!

Tom Daschle (2008), Critical:  What We Can Do about The Health-Care Crisis.  New York:  Thomas Dunne Books.  The loss of former Senator of Tom Daschle in the health care debate was nothing less than tragic.  His credibilty in the U.S. Senate and knowledge of health care reform might have moved the Senate in another direction.  Nevertheless, we have much to learn from Senator Daschle’s book as we engage in necessary, future attempts at reform.

The history of Health Reform presented in Critical provides an understanding of why we haven’t achieved real health care reform in past administrations and what is needed to make it work.  His major idea – The Federal Health Reform Board – will have an uphill battle until we find a way to counter the propaganda of reform opponents.  Although such an entity is necessary for controlling graft and corruption in the current system, Koch funded propagandists will attack it as “a government take over,” “death panel,” or whatever other nonsense they can conjure up.

David Blumenthal & James A.  Morone (2009), The Heart of Power:  Health & Politics in the Oval Office.  Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press.

I want to thank Burdett Loomis for suggesting this book to me.  It is a fascinating history of health care reform policies of U.S. presidents from FDR through George W. Bush.  It is readable and interesting from many perspectives, not the least of which is the authors’ insights into the personalities of the Presidents, their life experiences, and how these influenced their efforts at health care reform.

If you lived through the administration of Richard Nixon and feel nothing but disdain for him, you might find it interesting that, compared to later presidencies, he doesn’t look so bad when it comes to health care reform.  He pushed some truly meaningful health care reform.  Had it not been for Watergate, Wilbur Mills’s dalliance with Fanny Fox, and a too little, too late effort to work with Ted Kennedy, we might not be fighting for decent health care reform 35 years later.

Theodore R. Marmor (2000), The Politics of Medicare.  New York:  Aldine De Gruyter.

Jonathan Oberlander (2003), The Political Life of Medicare.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.

 

THE FOLLY OF WAR

Andrew J. Bacevich (November, 2009), “The War We Can’t Win,” Harper’s, November, 2009, pp. 15 – 20.

Andrew Bacevich is a professor of international relations at Boston University.  He is a veteran of the War in Viet Nam War and served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1992.  He lost a son in the Iraq War.  I also like his book The Limits of Power (2008, New York:  Henry Holt and Company), however, this readable short article is an excellent summary of the downside to any rediculous, misguided escalation of our military venture in Afghanistan.  The following are some quotes from the article:

“The misguided and mismanaged global war on terror reduced Bush’s presidency to ruin.  The cadidate whose run for high office derived its energy from an implicit promise to repudiate all that Bush hd wrought now seems intent on salvaging something from thajt failed enterprise – even if that means putting his own presidency at risk.  Candidate Obama once derided the notion that the United States is called upon to determine the fate of Iraq.  President Obama expresses a willingness to expend untold billions – not to mention who knows how many lives – in order to determine the fate of Afghanistan.” (page 15)

“Fixing Afghanistan is not only unnecessary, it’s also likely to prove impossible.  Not for nothing has the place acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires.” (page 16).

“Pretending that the surge has redeemed the Iraq war is akin to claiming that when Andy Jackson “caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans” he thereby enabled the United States to emerge victorious from the War of 1812.” (page 17)

Joseph E. Stiglitz & Linda J. Bilmes (2008), The Three Trillion Dollar War.  New York:  W.W. Norton & Company.   I am constantly looking for projected health care costs related to seriously wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.  Stiglitz and Bilmes are the only researchers discussing it.  You can’t find it any where else.  Trauma medicine and, consequently, battle field medicine have progressed to the point that very seriously wounded soldiers who would have died in earlier wars are kept alive.  That is a good thing.  I am all for it.  But it won’t be cheap.  Furthermore, it was unnecessary because the wars have been unnecessary.

Linda Bilmes & Joseph Stiglitz (2009), “The Ten Trillion Dollar Hangover:  Paying the Price for the Bush Years.” Harpers, January 2009

Dan Briody (2003), The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group.  Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons.

If you haven’t heard of the Carlyle Group or would like to know more about it, read this book.  Why should you read this book?  Well, the Carlyle Group is a so-called private equity firm that provided a vehicle for the Bush family, the Saudi Royal Family, former defense secretaries in Republican and Democratic Administrations, and other connected individuals to make a fortune from leveraged buyouts of defense contracting corporations.  With its government connections, the Carlyle Group has turned its LBOs into fortunes for it investors.  War is in their best interest.  Nevertheless, the Carlyle Group has become more than a private equity firm.  It is now a major player as a hedge fund as well as a private equity firm in the secretive world of Sovereign Wealth Funds generated by China, Saudi Arabia, and othe oil rich and or emerging economies.