The history of the U.S. health care system since the 1940s was the topic of a talk by John McDonough, professor of the practice of public health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, at the annual Healthcare in America Lecture Series at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University on November 1, 2017.
McDonough was a senior advisor in the U.S. Senate between 2008 and 2010 and helped develop the Affordable Care Act currently being debated by government officials.
“Health care is probably, more than anything, the exemplar of a dysfunctional market,” said McDonough in a November 1 Brown Daily Herald article.
However, he remains hopeful that current ACA issues can be addressed in the future by learning about what’s working in other countries’ health care systems, such as Germany’s, which he said is his favorite, according to the article.
“There (are) some really good models out there that make sense if we have a different environment, and we will,” he said. “It’s only a question of how long it will take.”
Read the Brown Daily Herald article: McDonough maps history of American health care
Learn more
Obamacare in good standing with American public (Harvard Chan School news)
Sorting through the Affordable Care Act debate (Harvard Chan School news)