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The state of American health care: November 2016 to November 2020, a look forward

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2017

Theodore Marmor
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Michael K. Gusmano*
Affiliation:
Rutgers University and the Hastings Center, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
*
*Correspondence to: Michael K. Gusmano, Rutgers University and the Hastings Center, 112 Paterson Street, Room 424, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. Email: gusmanom@thehastingscenter.org

Abstract

The election of Donald Trump, coupled with the retention of Republican majorities in the US House of Representatives and Senate, raises questions about future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the structure and funding of the country’s public health insurance programs – Medicare, Medicaid and the Child Health Insurance Program – and the direction of health policy in the United States, more generally. Political scientists are not renowned for their capacity to predict the future and many of those who forecast election results have received criticism in recent weeks for failing to predict the Trump victory. While the future is uncertain, it is possible for social scientists to offer a ‘conditional causal analysis’ about the future. This essay is an effort to think about the likely shape of American health care between now and the next US presidential election.

Type
Perspective
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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