Description
Although many Americans express concern and often anger about the state of the nation's health-care system, far too few of us understand why and how the system functions. In this six-part e-seminar series, Michael S. Sparer, associate professor of public health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, demystifies health care in the United States. He explores the following topics

•	how the health-care system is organized,
•	who pays the health-care bill,
•	why efforts to enact national health insurance have failed,
•	what the key issues are on the nation's long-term care policy agenda,
•	what role the government now plays in the U.S. health-care system,
•	how government can encourage good quality care.

In this first e-seminar, Professor Sparer exposes the foundations of health care in the United States. He looks at how America's culture of independence and innate distrust of government inspired the nation's early reliance on market solutions for health-care provision. Beginning with the American Revolution and continuing through World War II, the e-seminar offers a fascinating look at how health care evolved from the birth of the nation to the cusp of the modern era.