Origins of American Health Insurance: A History of Industrial Sickness Funds

Yale Series in Economic and Financial History

by John E. Murray Jr.

How did the United States come to have its distinctive workplace-based health insurance system? Why did Progressive initiatives to establish a government system fail? This book explores the history of health insurance in the United States from its roots in the nineteenth-century sickness funds offered by industrial employers, fraternal organizations, and labor unions to the rise of such group plans as Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the mid-twentieth century. Historians generally view the failure to establish universal health insurance during the first half of the twentieth century as an indicator of the political clout of insurers, employers, unions, and physicians who thwarted Progressive efforts. But the explanation is actually simpler, John Murray contends in this book. Careful analysis of the workings of industrial sickness funds suggests that workers rejected plans for compulsory state insurance because they were largely content with existing private plans. Murray revises our understanding of the evolution of health care insurance in the United States and discusses the implications of that history for the ongoing debates of today.

Genres: Health Care, History, Nonfiction

313 pages, Hardcover

First published November 13, 2007

Reviews

[Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very academic approach to the theoretical basis of why Progressive's government health insurance plans were unable to replace various types (establishment, union, fraternal) sickness plans in the US in the period between 1890 and 1940. The argument relies heavily upon the use of regression analysis due to the paucity of well-developed data sets. The author argues that traditional views of the times are overly simplistic and fail to take a full account of the many intervening social factors related to how various sickness funds were established and managed.

An excellent analysis of a very fine slice of American history in a time of great change due to the industrial revolution and modern inventions. A worthy read of anyone with a specific interest in this area.