Includes bibliographical references (pages 117-118) and index.

Part I. The economy's vampire: health care -- 1. Health care, deficits, and the economy -- 2. The absent free market -- 3. The economy's vampire -- Part II. Three generations of reform proposals -- 4. The new deal and its progenitors -- 5. World War II, tax deductibility, and the Fair Deal -- 6. Medicare and Medicaid -- 7. Hillarycare and its progeny -- Part III. What is wrong with Democratic and Republican plans -- 8. 2016 plans -- Part IV. The key problems in American health policy -- 9. Problem I, unlimited demand due to third party payment -- 10. Problem II, high costs = poor access -- 11. Problem III, the health cartel -- 12. Obamacare -- 13. The shadow of 2018 -- Part V. A nonpartisan health financing alternative: HIRB -- 14. Bending the curve on funding health-care cost -- 15. Financing basics -- 16. HIRB and public policy -- 17. Why HIRB works -- 18. HIRB's robustness over a range of interest rates -- 19. A health insurance requisite -- 20. Summation -- 21. HIRB's versatility -- Part VI. Conclusion -- 22. What Democrats get wrong about health reform -- 23. What Republicans get wrong about health reform -- 24. The path to a sustainable health system -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- For more about HIRB -- Index.

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America's health system has been a polarizing issue in most presidential campaigns in our lifetimes. It is hardly surprising that an industry that consumes nearly one in every five dollars spent in the U.S. economy has loomed over our politics. Its only competition in the last few decades was the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It will be prominent again in 2016 and beyond. This book will guide you through the fusillade of charges, and promises, you will hear in political campaigns about health care and "reform." They will occur now that the fiscal calamity of Boomer retirement is no longer a threat: it is here. For all the attention Social Security receives, Medicare is the truly scary entitlement program, with unfunded liabilities many times larger. This book also offers a powerful tool of reform. The Health Insurance Revenue Bond (HIRB) is a new and completely self-liquidating financing approach that fully funds escalating liabilities such as health care-- without deficits. If you can't bend the curve on health costs, bend the curve on the cost of funding. The HIRB program can assist governments in developed nations to begin the long and painful process of deleveraging.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest, 2016. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest affiliated libraries.