Center for Social Justice Online Library

The United States is the only industrialized democracy that allows its citizens to go entirely without health care for lack of funds or to be bankrupted by medical bills. Author Pamela Behan was confronted by the effects of this policy failure during her previous career as a nurse, and with Solving the Health Care Problem, she examines how it can be corrected. Behan explores American health care policy failure by looking at how two other, similar nations—Canada and Australia—managed to adopt health care protections, and compares their stories with events in the United States. Behan's systematic comparison of all three nations shows that the factors responsible for these different results center on the responsiveness of each nation's political institutions to its voters. In particular, Australia's parliamentary system and labor party and Canada's constitutional flexibility and national-provincial dynamics proved central to each nation's adoption of national health insurance. In contrast, similar efforts in the United States became less frequent and less ambitious after they were repeatedly blocked without even coming to a vote. These dissimilarities reveal the institutional and class issues that must be addressed for the United States to successfully confront the health care problem.

This book argues against the conventional wisdom that a U.S. right to health is out of reach. It shows that the necessary change is not extraordinary but familiar and that the law has already laid considerable groundwork in ordinary statutes and case law. This descriptive foundation, revealed through the application of well-accepted theories of rights, has simply yet to be either acknowledged as, or relied upon, for rights-building. The book then moves from the descriptive task of showing where a right to health already exists in our legal corpus to the prescriptive goal of showing how we could feasibly and meaningfully expand the right through ordinary policies that are widely used in other domains, including impact assessments and state-sponsored reinsurance.

By normalizing American health rights discourse and bringing a right to health, including a right to health care, within the domain of ordinary policy debate, this book arms health advocates for the sharp political contests over health that we face today. Amid the prevailing neoliberal, neo-Lochnerian ideologies that have led us to a dead-end, this book proposes a rival ethic that has been developing right under our noses, one focused on embodied justice, where the priority is squarely on the human and our capacity for suffering and flourishing.

Essentials of Health Justice can be used as a stand-alone or supplemental text for a wide range of undergraduate and graduate public health, health policy, medical, nursing, health administration, and other health profession courses that focus on or include content on the social determinants of health, underserved populations, health equity, and the relationship between social justice and health. In particular, the book will serve to enhance discussion of the many structural, legal, and policy issues underlying health disparities; the various public health and health care interventions geared toward improving health care access and more just health outcomes for vulnerable populations; and the ways in which the nation can better achieve health equity and justice.

Amid ongoing debate about health care reform, the need for informed analyses of U.S. health policy is greater than ever. The twelve original essays in this volume show that common public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, the contributors illuminate the relationships between justice and health inequalities to complicate and enrich debates often dominated by simplistic narratives.

Health care spending in the United States today is approaching 20 percent of GDP, yet levels of U.S. population health have been declining for decades relative to other wealthy and even some developing nations. How is it possible that the United States, which spends more than any other nation on health care and insurance, now has a population markedly less healthy than those of many other nations? Sociologist and public health expert James S. House analyzes this paradoxical crisis, offering surprising new explanations for how and why the United States has fallen into this trap. In Beyond Obamacare, House shows that health care reforms, including the Affordable Care Act, cannot resolve this crisis because they do not focus on the underlying causes for the nation’s poor health outcomes, which are largely social, economic, environmental, psychological, and behavioral. House demonstrates that the problems of our broken health care and insurance system are interconnected with our large and growing social disparities in education, income, and other conditions of life and work, and calls for a complete reorientation of how we think about health. He concludes that we need to move away from our misguided and almost exclusive focus on biomedical determinants of health, and to place more emphasis on addressing social, economic, and other inequalities. House’s review of the evidence suggests that the landmark Affordable Care Act of 2010, and even universal access to health care, are likely to yield only marginal improvements in population health or in reducing health care expenditures. In order to rein in spending and improve population health, we need to refocus health policy from the supply side―which makes more and presumably better health care available to more citizens―to the demand side―which would improve population health though means other than health care and insurance, thereby reducing need and spending for health care. House shows how policies that provide expanded educational opportunities, more and better jobs and income, reduced racial-ethnic discrimination and segregation, and improved neighborhood quality enhance population health and quality of life as well as help curb health spending. He recommends redirecting funds from inefficient supply-side health care measures toward broader social initiatives focused on education, income support, civil rights, housing and neighborhoods, and other reforms, which can be paid for from savings in expenditures for health care and insurance. A provocative reconceptualization of health in America, Beyond Obamacare looks past partisan debates to show how cost-efficient and effective health policies begin with more comprehensive social policy reforms.

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.
A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:
• Challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights.

“What kind of cancer is it?” was the first question Barbara Brenner asked her doctor after hearing that the lump in her breast was malignant. His answer: “You don't need to know that.” Wrong response. Brenner, who was already an activist, made knowing her business and spreading knowledge her mission. The power behind Breast Cancer Action® and its transformative Think Before You Pink campaign, Barbara Brenner brought an abundance of wit, courage, and clarity to the cause and forever changed the conversation. What had been construed as an individual crisis could now be seen for what it was: a pressing concern of public health and social justice, with environmental issues at the center of prevention efforts.

Collected in So Much to Be Done, and framed by personal accounts of Barbara and her influential work, Brenner’s columns and blog posts form a chronicle of breast cancer research and health care activism that is as inspiring as it is informative. As she takes on the corporate forces at work in breast cancer research and treatment and in the “pinkwashing” of fund-raising for the cause, Brenner, a self-described hell-raiser, contends with cancer herself, twice, and her words offer understanding and encouragement to all those whose lives are touched by the disease.

When Brenner was diagnosed with ALS in 2011, she broadened her critique of health care while also writing about her own experience. Infused with her characteristic moxie, humor, anger, and compassion, these reflections from her last two years provide an in-depth, precisely observed portrayal of what it is to live with a terminal disease and to die on one’s own terms.

This powerful biography traces the career of an African American physician and civil rights advocate, Edward Craig Mazique (1911-1987), from the poverty and discrimination of Natchez, Mississippi, to his status as a prominent physician in Washington, DC. This moving story of one man's accomplishments, in spite of many opposing forces, is also a chapter in the struggle of African Americans to achieve equality in the twentieth century.

At a time when black people were being denied entry into the American Medical Association and were not permitted to join the staffs of most hospitals, Dr. Mazique was the president of the Medico-Chirurgical Society and the National Medical Association. Dr. Mazique worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and black physicians to expand the availability of health care. Much of this story is in Dr. Mazique's own words, taken from interviews with the author. What emerges from this biography is a picture of an exceptional but very human man who, despite discrimination and repression, excelled beyond all expectations.

Introduces a vision for the future of health equity and explains practical policy measures for how to achieve it.
Health inequity is one of the defining problems of our time. But current efforts to address the problem focus on mitigating the harms of injustice rather than confronting injustice itself. In Equal Care, Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, offers an innovative vision for the future of health equity by examining the social mechanisms that link injustice to poor health. He also presents practical policies designed to create a system of social relations that ensures equal care for everyone.
As Berkowitz illustrates, the project of social democracy works to improve health by bringing relationships of equality to the sites of human cooperation: in civil society, in political processes, and in economic activities. This book synthesizes three elements necessary for such a project―normative justification, mechanistic knowledge, and technical proficiency―into a practical vision of how to create health equity. Drawing from the fields of medicine, social epidemiology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and more, Berkowitz makes clear that health inequity is social failure embodied, and the only true cures are political. Equal Care is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of health equity.

A rich examination of the history of trans medicine and current day practice Surfacing in the mid-twentieth century, yet shrouded in social stigma, transgender medicine is now a rapidly growing medical field. In Trans Medicine, stef shuster makes an important intervention in how we understand the development of this field and how it is being used to “treat” gender identity today. Drawing on interviews with medical providers as well as ethnographic and archival research, shuster examines how health professionals approach patients who seek gender-affirming care. From genital reconstructions to hormone injections, the practice of trans medicine charts new medical ground, compelling medical professionals to plan treatments without widescale clinical trials to back them up. Relying on cultural norms and gut instincts to inform their treatment plans, shuster shows how medical providers' lack of clinical experience and scientific research undermines their ability to interact with patients, craft treatment plans, and make medical decisions. This situation defies how providers are trained to work with patients and creates uncertainty. As providers navigate the developing knowledge surrounding the medical care of trans folk, Trans Medicine offers a rare opportunity to understand how providers make decisions while facing challenges to their expertise and, in the process, have acquired authority not only over clinical outcomes, but over gender itself.

The events of 2020 were an inflection point in an American journey toward health and racial equity. Necessary Conversations: Understanding Racism as a Barrier to Achieving Health Equity extends a powerful call to action. RWJF's Sharing Knowledge conference was held in Jackson, Miss., a setting where it could build on its conviction that a Culture of Health is impossible without a commitment to racial equity. Hundreds of participants from around the country engaged in authentic dialogue about the systems and structures that are doing grave harm to people of color. With so many types of knowledge-builders in the room, a palette filled with blunt, provocative, and insistent ideas and strategies could be shared to inspire action. This sixth book in the Culture of Health series reflects a distinct shift in RWJF's emphasis, based on a growing body of evidence that racism is the underlying cause of so many poor health outcomes. RWJF is considering what it would take to overhaul institutions that treat people differently on the basis of their race and to make very intentional shifts in their investments to elevate that focus. They are recognizing they have to commit resources and join with others to support working to advance health and racial equity. They are deepening their understanding of what it means to build partnerships and community power and the centrality of leadership by those who are most affected by the decisions that influence their lives.

Contents
Part I. Introduction -- How Historic Civil Rights Acts and the Affordable Care Act Section 1557 Apply to Health Care Entities -- Race, Color, and National Origin Discrimination -- Sex Discrimination -- Disability Discrimination -- Age Discrimination -- Communication Disabilities and Non-English Speakers -- The Affordable Care Act Section 1557 and the Federal Financial Assistance Civil Rights Acts: Entities Covered, Administrative Obligations, and Enforcement -- Part II. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act: Overview of the Federal and State Mental Health Parity Laws -- The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) -- Part III. Federal Discrimination Law and Commercial Health Insurance, Coverage, and Benefits -- Discrimination Laws for Federal Health Programs and Benefits.

Covers three general topic areas: (1) the changing health care system; (2) managing data and information; and (3) fraud and abuse.

Comprehensive four-volume treatise covering important aspects of health law. The Healthcare Reform Law Supplement is a resource guide about the 2010 healthcare reform legislation.
Contents: PART I. Operational Issues for Health Care Facilities
PART II. Patient Care Delivery Issues
PART III. Payment Issues
PART IV. Transactions
PART V. Legal Concerns In Specific Health Care Delivery Settings