Origins of American Health Insurance

A History of Industrial Sickness Funds

John E. Murray

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Hardback

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English

Yale University Press
16 November 2007

Insurance & actuarial studies; Health systems & services

Series: Yale Series in Economic and Financial History

How did the United States come to have its distinctive workplace-based health insurance system? Why did Progressive initiatives to establish a government system fail? This book explores the history of health insurance in the United States from its roots in the nineteenth-century sickness funds offered by industrial employers, fraternal organizations, and labor unions to the rise of such group plans as Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the mid-twentieth century.

Historians generally view the failure to establish universal health insurance during the first half of the twentieth century as an indicator of the political clout of insurers, employers, unions, and physicians who thwarted Progressive efforts. But the explanation is actually simpler, John Murray contends in this book. Careful analysis of the workings of industrial sickness funds suggests that workers rejected plans for compulsory state insurance because they were largely content with existing private plans. Murray revises our understanding of the evolution of health care insurance in the United States and discusses the implications of that history for the ongoing debates of today.

By: John E. Murray
Imprint: Yale University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 685g
ISBN: 9780300120912
ISBN 10: 0300120915
Series: Yale Series in Economic and Financial History
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 16 November 2007
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Further / Higher Education , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

John E. Murray is professor of economics, University of Toledo. He lives in Toledo, OH.

Reviews for Origins of American Health Insurance: A History of Industrial Sickness Funds

John Murray offers a compelling explanation for the defeat of governmental health insurance in the United States during the early twentieth century. Murray finds that voters rejected governmental plans because they saw no reason to change the status quo. This book is a devastating retort to the dominant interpretation which holds that this movement fell prey to the power of special interests and hysterical propaganda. --David T. Beito, University of Alabama <br>--David T. Beito