No Benefit: Crisis in America's Health Insurance Industry

by Lawrence D. Weiss

Overview

The private health insurance industry is unable to provide nearly 40 million Americans with basic health care. Relying on data from a wide range of publications about this secretive industry, Lawrence D. Weiss investigates the causes of the industry's problems and analyzes the social effects of the growing crisis. The causes include excessive overhead costs, widespread inefficiency, and exemptions from antimonopoly regulations; the social effects include small businesses' inabilities to provide adequate coverage for their employees, the reluctance of many carriers to insure certain social groups, and the disproportionate burden on minorities. Addressing these dilemmas, Lawrence D. Weiss offers a timely and important analysis of the health insurance crisis in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367003708
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/07/2019
Pages:	169
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.88(h) x (d)

About the Author

Lawrence D. Weiss is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Alaska at Anchorage.

Table of Contents

1 Placing the Social Fact of Private Health Insurance in Perspective 2 Historical Development and Current Profile 3 Creating the Uninsured 4 Employer Cost-cutting Strategies 5 Fraud and Deception 6 Price Fixing and Conspiracy 7 Insolvencies: Insurance Companies That Cannot Pay Claims 8 The Inefficient Private Sector 9 A Political Question: Accommodation, Compromise, or Struggle? 10 Summary and Conclusions