James M. Brasfield

James M (Jim) Brasfield is a political scientist with a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He is Professor Emeritus at Webster University in St. Louis. Brasfield taught the MHA health policy course for forty years. His book Health Policy: The Decade Ahead follows major topics of the course, including Medicare, Medicaid, Health Reform, and Cost Control. It was published in 2011 by Lynne Rienner Publishers.

The second book is The Affordable Care Act: At the Nexus of Politics and Policy, also published by Lynne Rienner in 2022. It is a historical analysis of the Affordable Care Act a decade after its enactment. It traces the chronological path of the ACA, including the passage of the enhanced tax credits during the first year of the Biden Administration. Major topics include the politics surrounding its passage, early implementation struggles and legal challenges, efforts to sabotage and repeal during the first Trump Administration, and an analytic assessment of its success and failures after a decade. The concluding chapter offers future scenarios for the next decade.

Often policy books focus either on an assessment of the policy analysis disputes or on the politics surrounding enactment and administration of a law. Brasfield’s book treats these two elements (Politics and Policy) and the intersection between them as essential for understanding the ACA and its impact.

One review of the book concludes: “Brasfield cleanly and concisely weaves together much useful data and scholarly analysis on the ACA’s political development into a single, coherent narrative.” Philip Rocco, Political Science Quarterly.