Expanding Arenas: A Political History of Modern U.S. Health Policy

Award Year: 2004	Investigator: Lawrence Brown	Budget: $274,969	Categories: History of Health Policy and Public Health, Politics and Policymaking
Abstract: Lawrence D. Brown, Ph.D. explores the political and historical forces that have shaped the federal government's growing role in health care delivery and financing since 1945. In his Investigator Award project, Expanding Arenas: A Political History of Modern U.S. Health Policy, Dr. Brown examines the rise and evolution of four policy "arenas" that he uses to categorize federal interventions in health care: subsidy, financing, reorganization, and regulation. In an era often described as the end of "big government," Dr. Brown aims to explain why government's role in health care continues to grow and to assess the prospects for health care reform in light of the political forces and obstacles that all reform proposals face.