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Beatrix Hoffman. Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. xxxv + 319 pp. Ill. $30.00 (978-0-226-34803-2).
Hoffman arrays historical evidence in order to advocate on behalf of universal coverage of health services, equality in addressing patients' needs as the only basis for allocating scarce resources, and access to a single public payer for care. She argues that every significant decision about health care coverage and financing during the past century-by government at every level, employers, private insurers, and providers-has either overtly or covertly rationed access to care, mainly by race, class, and geography.
Even policies that accord groups of Americans a right to health care have invariably rationed it, she claims. For example, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) expands access to care but "retains and updates many aspects of US-style rationing" (p. 217). Similarly, Medicare, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and employer-sponsored...