The Ten Year War
Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Jonathan Cohn's The Ten Year War is the definitive account of the battle over Obamacare, based on interviews with sources who were in the room, from one of the nation's foremost healthcare journalists.
The Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” was the most sweeping and consequential piece of legislation of the last half century. It has touched nearly every American in one way or another, for better or worse, and become the defining political fight of our time.
In The Ten Year War, veteran journalist Jonathan Cohn offers the compelling, authoritative history of how the law came to be, why it looks like it does, and what it’s meant for average Americans. Drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews, plus private diaries, emails and memos, The Ten Year War takes readers to Capitol Hill and to town hall meetings, inside the West Wing and, eventually, into Trump Tower, as the nation's most powerful leaders try to reconcile pragmatism and idealism, self-interest and the public good, and ultimately two very different visions for what the country should look like.
At the heart of the book is the decades-old argument over what’s wrong with American health care and how to fix it. But the battle over healthcare was always about more than policy. The Ten Year War offers a deeper examination of how our governing institutions, the media and the two parties have evolved, and the dysfunction those changes have left in their wake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
HuffPost correspondent Cohn (Sick) delivers an engrossing behind-the-scenes account of the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Drawing on interviews with President Obama and other key players, Cohn illustrates how the compromises needed to pass the legislation (namely, the abandonment of the public option) left progressive advocates unsatisfied and led to Medicare for All becoming a central issue of the 2020 Democratic primary. Cohn also sketches the history of healthcare as a political cause, noting that President Nixon was open to universal coverage in the 1970s, and that conservatives embraced Republican governor Mitt Romney's creation of an individual mandate requiring people to purchase healthcare coverage in Massachusetts, before opposing the same policy as part of Obamacare. Supporters of the Affordable Care Act will be shocked by the sloppy wording that left it vulnerable to being overturned by the Supreme Court, and impressed by the details of Nancy Pelosi's maneuvering to get it across the finish line in Congress. This is a comprehensive and essential look at "arguably the most important and controversial piece of legislation in the last few decades."
