Cries of Crisis: Rethinking the Health Care Debate - Softcover

Hackey, Robert B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874179777 ISBN 13: 9780874179774

Publisher: University of Nevada Press, 2015

Synopsis

Health care in the United States has been described as a system in crisis since the late 1960s. No matter their position, those seeking to improve the system have relied on the rhetoric of crisis to build support for their preferred remedies, to the point where the language and imagery of a health care crisis are now deeply embedded in contemporary politics and popular culture. In Cries of Crisis, Robert B. Hackey analyzes media coverage, political speeches, films, and television shows to demonstrate the role that language and symbolism have played in framing the health care debate, shaping policy making, and influencing public perceptions of problems in the health care system.

Hackey shows that the idea of crisis now means so many different things to so many different groups that it has ceased to have any shared meaning at all. He argues that the constant talk of “crisis,” without a commonly accepted definition of that term, has actually impeded efforts to diagnose and treat the chronic problems plaguing the American health care system. Instead, he contends, reformers must embrace a new rhetorical strategy that links proposals to improve the system with deeply held American values such as equality and fairness.

About this title

About the Author

Robert B. Hackey is a professor of health and policy management at Providence College and a visiting fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, USA. He is the author of Rethinking Health Care Policy: The New Politics of State Regulation and other books.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0874179777
• ISBN 13: 9780874179774
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192