The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry [B0431]

1982 PB in nice clean condition. Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History. Considered the definitive history of the American health care system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine examines how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. How did the financially insecure medical profession of the nineteenth century become a prosperous one in the twentieth? Why was national health insurance blocked? And why are corporate institutions taking over our medical system today? Beginning in 1760, renowned sociologist Paul Starr traces the decline of professional sovereignty in medicine, the political struggles over health care, and the rise of a corporate system. Note: this is the original 1982 edition, not the updated 2017 edition.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A really great, relatively unbiased overview of the healthcare system in America and how it's evolved into the monstrosity we have today. It was interesting (and a little demoralizing) to read this during a time when our healthcare system has been under a lot of scrutiny in the media. I was surprised to find myself feeling more anger toward cartel-like hospital conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies, physicians advocating for increasingly expensive yet only marginally more effective treatments, and our government for failing to be proactive about any of these problems than I was toward private insurance companies."; "Wonderful book. Learned so much during the read and left me even more to think about and digest after."