The Limits of Professional Power:
National Health Care in the Federal Republic of Germany
In graduate school, I became passionate about achieving universal health insurance in the United States. Germany had the world’s first government-sponsored health insurance system, dating back to 1884. It was originally only for blue-collar workers, but by 1970, it had evolved into a highly effective universal system that I thought could be a politically acceptable model for the U.S
With that goal in mind, I wrote my PhD thesis on Germany’s health insurance and turned the thesis into a book. The book caught the attention of officials in the Health Care Financing Administration, who asked me to design a piece of a national health insurance proposal they were hoping to put into law.
A few months after I delivered my report, Ronald Reagan was elected President. Government became the problem, not the solution. My report died, but Germany’s inspiration lived on and for years, I was invited to write and speak about it to people who believe health care is a human right.
