★ 12/14/2020
HuffPost correspondent Cohn (Sick) delivers an engrossing behind-the-scenes account of the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Drawing on interviews with President Obama and other key players, Cohn illustrates how the compromises needed to pass the legislation (namely, the abandonment of the public option) left progressive advocates unsatisfied and led to Medicare for All becoming a central issue of the 2020 Democratic primary. Cohn also sketches the history of healthcare as a political cause, noting that President Nixon was open to universal coverage in the 1970s, and that conservatives embraced Republican governor Mitt Romney’s creation of an individual mandate requiring people to purchase healthcare coverage in Massachusetts, before opposing the same policy as part of Obamacare. Supporters of the Affordable Care Act will be shocked by the sloppy wording that left it vulnerable to being overturned by the Supreme Court, and impressed by the details of Nancy Pelosi’s maneuvering to get it across the finish line in Congress. This is a comprehensive and essential look at “arguably the most important and controversial piece of legislation in the last few decades.” Agent: Kathy Robbins, the Robbins Office. (Feb.)
Insightful… [The Ten Year War] takes its well-earned place next to Haynes Johnson and David S. Broder’s account of HillaryCare, The System, as must-reads for anyone wanting to understand how the mean-spirited but occasionally uplifting politics of healthcare played out in the capital at crucial turning points in recent history.” —Washington Monthly
“Informed and nuanced, not breathless...Cohn aims at both policy wonks and political junkies. Laced with interviews and quotes from both sides of the aisle, his book is definitely newsworthy.” —The Guardian
“An engaging, highly readable narrative that makes arcane issues accessible...His own bias in favor of universal coverage is explicit, but he treats fairly the philosophical and economic arguments of the opposing view.” —Foreign Affairs
"With writing that is lively, engaging, knowledgeable without being scholarly, detailed without being pedantic, Cohn is an exemplar of investigative, expository journalism at its best." —Booklist (starred review)
"An engrossing behind-the-scenes account of the fight to pass the Affordable Care Act in 2010... comprehensive and essential." —Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
"An absorbing, fast-paced narrative." —Library Journal (starred review)
"No one has reported more deeply about the quest for universal health care than Jonathan Cohn. Now, in The Ten Year War, he has woven all that knowledge into a sweeping, riveting narrative. Cohn never loses sight of the enormous human stakes involved and tells a much larger story about the fight to save American politics." — DAVID GRANN, staff writer at The New Yorker, author of Killers of the Flower Moon
"A front row seat to the most important legislation passed in a generation, The Ten Year War brilliantly shares the roller coaster ups-and-downs. Just like its subject, this book is a Big Fucking Deal." — MONA HANNA-ATTISHA, founder of the Flint Pediatric Public Health Initiative, author of What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
“No legislative achievement has done more to shape the modern political era than the Affordable Care Act. Jonathan Cohn’s sweeping narrative of the decades-long struggle to reform America’s health care system—and of the sustained assault on Obamacare in the years after it became law—will go down as the definitive work on the definitive policy battle of the early 21st century.” — TIM ALBERTA, chief political correspondent at Politico, author of American Carnage
"With its original reporting and vivid storytelling, The Ten Year War is essential reading for everybody who wants to heal our sick health care system — and our sick political institutions too." — ROBERT PUTNAM, professor at Harvard University, author of Bowling Alone and The Upswing
"In Jonathan Cohn's expert telling, the story of Obamacare emerges not only as a policy challenge for the ages, but a gripping narrative about the breakdown of American politics that helps explain how we as a nation ended up in this gridlocked, uncertain place.” — SUSAN GLASSER, staff writer at The New Yorker, co-author of The Man Who Ran Washington
"The Affordable Care Act fight was the defining legislative battle of the modern era — the one in which the true nature of our institutions and parties came into sharp relief, the one in which the strategies and ideologies that dominate politics now were forged and formed. Jonathan Cohn covered it brilliantly, and now he’s written the authoritative account it deserves." — EZRA KLEIN, founder and editor-at-large of Vox, author of Why We're Polarized
Praise for Sick:
“This is a stunningly important book. Jonathan Cohn lays bare the tragedy of our health care system.” —Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal
“A terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system.” —Paul Krugman, The New York Times
“No one has thought harder about our heath care system than Jonathan Cohn.” —E.J. Dionne, Jr., author of Code Red
"Sick is one of those rare books that combines the personal with the sharply analytical." —Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights
“Sick is an eye-opening work on healthcare in America told through the stories of those in need.” —Jerome Groopman, author of The Anatomy of Hope
★ 02/01/2021
Cohn (Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis), a Huffpost correspondent, aims to write a comprehensive history about the battle to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. Beginning with Ronald Reagan's campaign against Medicare, the author considers how subsequent presidents and influential politicians have approached health care, from Bill Clinton's unsuccessful reform efforts to the passage of the ACA during Barack Obama's first term in office. Cohn considers alarming shifts in American politics that have influenced health care policy, and offers an authoritative account of health care law that helps readers understand how these laws impact their daily lives. Further primary and secondhand sources inform Cohn's argument that health care law is more about politics than policy. The strength of the book lies in Cohn's comprehensive and detailed analysis, allowing readers to learn how policy making has evolved over time, and how the Republican establishment fought, and continues to fight, to overturn the legislation. VERDICT An extensive and definitive account of competing visions of American health care that will be of particular interest to readers curious about the process of creating policy and those interested in reform. Cohn's accessible writing makes for an absorbing, fast-paced narrative—Rachel M. Minkin, Michigan State Univ. Libs., East Lansing
2020-11-26
In a book that took 10 years to research and write, journalist Cohn offers a thorough history of the persistent controversy over health care insurance in the U.S.
In other developed countries, writes the author, governments “are firmly in charge, using some form of taxes or mandatory premiums to finance benefits.” But the U.S. has seen an often vociferous debate “over what obligations society has to its most vulnerable members.” Cohn provides an informative overview of health coverage efforts beginning in the 1920s. Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter all supported public health plans, but they faced opposition from private insurers and conservative politicians. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan led that opposition as president, tapping into widespread anger over federal support programs. Bill Clinton’s efforts to devise a plan encountered opposition from multiple fronts, including within his own party. In 2006, as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney instituted bold reforms that gave the state’s citizens better access to health care and increased financial security, a model that later inspired Obama’s plans for national health care. Nevertheless, in 2010, Scott Brown won election as senator from Massachusetts by attacking Romney’s measure “as a corrupt, secretive exercise by political insiders.” Cohn traces the fraught development of the Affordable Care Act, the controversy and compromises that led to its passage, and the continuing debate. Republican opposition, he asserts, began immediately after the law was signed on March 23, 2010, and became a rallying cry for Trump and his supporters. “At its core,” Cohn writes, “universal health care is all about common strength in common vulnerability. It’s a recognition that anybody can get sick or injured—that, by pooling resources together, everybody will be safe. It’s the same exact concept as Social Security and Medicare, and why the party responsible for them has spent nearly a century trying to extend health care guarantees to the rest of the population.”
A timely contribution to the literature on an urgent issue.
