The American Prospect Special Report Focuses on U.S. Health Care System

The May 2008 issue of The American Prospect features a special report on health care issues in the U.S. The following articles are included in the report:

• "Borrowing Ill Health": Tamara Draut, an author and director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, examines how medical debt is becoming more prevalent as health care costs continue to rise and how some hospitals and other health care providers are using financial service companies to "ease their burden for collecting bills by providing patients with a new way to pay their health bills: with credit" (Draut, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "Health Reform You Shouldn't Believe In": In the article, Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer on social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses Massachusetts' experiences in implementing its health insurance law, as well as the need for a single-payer health care system in the U.S. (Angell, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "Lessons From California": Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, examines unsuccessful efforts by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to overhaul the state's health care system and what lessons can be learned from the attempt (Wright, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "The Elusive Politics of Reform": In the article, American Prospect staff writer Ezra Klein examines prospects for a universal health coverage initiative in the U.S., focusing on the need to control costs and attract 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster legislation proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) (Klein, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "The Primacy of Prevention": Neal Halfon -- a professor of pediatrics, health services and public policy and director the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities and the Blue Sky Initiative -- discusses how a successful universal health system needs to focus on prevention and promote healthy lifestyles (Halfon, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "What Path to Universal Coverage?": Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect and a distinguished senior fellow at Demos, discusses problems with the U.S. health care system and efforts to establish universal coverage (Kuttner, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "What Really Ails Medicare": In the article, Jonathan Cohn, senior editor of The New Republic and a contributing editor for The American Prospect, examines problems facing Medicare and says that establishing universal health coverage in the U.S. is the best way to keep the program affordable (Cohn, The American Prospect, May 2008).
  
  
• "Why Not Connecticut?": Marc Caplan, program officer for the Proteus Fund, examines efforts in Connecticut to create a statewide universal health system and prospects for success (Caplan, The American Prospect, May 2008).