Obamacare Wars: Federalism, State Politics, and the Affordable

Obamacare Wars: Federalism, State Politics, and the Affordable Care Act (Studies in Government and Public Policy)

Not five minutes after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law, in March 2010, Virginiaâ€™s attorney general was suing to stop it. And yet, the ACA rolled out, in infamously bumpy fashion, and rolled on, fought and defended at every turnâ€”despite President Obamaâ€™s claim, in 2014, that its proponents and opponents could finally â€œstop fighting old political battles that keep us gridlocked.â€ But not only would the battles not stop, as Obamacare Wars makes acutely clear, they spread from Washington, DC, to a variety of new arenas. The first thorough account of the implementation of the ACA, this book reveals the fissures the act exposed in the American federal system.

Obamacare Wars shows how the lawâ€™s intergovernmental structure, which entails the participation of both the federal government and the states, has deeply shaped the politics of implementation. Focusing on the creation of insurance exchanges, the expansion of Medicaid, and execution of regulatory reforms, Daniel BÃ©land, Philip Rocco, and Alex Waddan examine how opponents of the ACA fought back against its implementation. They also explain why opponents of the law were successful in some efforts and not in othersâ€”and not necessarily in a seemingly predictable red vs. blue pattern. Their work identifies the role of policy legacies, institutional fragmentation, and public sentiments in each instance as states grappled with new institutions, as in the case of the exchanges, or existing structures, in Medicaid and regulatory reform.

Looking broadly at national trends and specifically at the experience of individual states, Obamacare Wars brings much-needed clarity to highly controversial but little-understood aspects of the Affordable Care Actâ€™s odyssey, with implications for how we understand the future trajectory of health reform, as well as the multiple forms of federalism in American politics.

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
Edition	1
EISBN	9780700621965
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer	University Press of Kansas
NumberOfPages	232
PublicationDate	2016-01-31
Publisher	University Press of Kansas
ReleaseDate	2016-01-31
Studio	University Press of Kansas

Obamacare Wars: Federalism, State Politics, and the Affordable Care Act (Studies in Government and Public Policy)

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