TMondays 10-12 Noon
January 12 through February 23, 2004
Kendal -Card Room
This course will be a loose lecture/discussion exploration of the following areas: defining the criteria by which developed-country health systems should be judged; how to describe the U.S. health system and how it scores against agreed criteria; how the U.S. system compares with those of other leading developed countries (Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and little Singapore); President Clinton's failed attempt to reform the system; the break-down of healthcare costs (e.g., doctors, nurses, hospitals, drugs, administration, liability); the reform proposals of the presidential candidates; some reform experiments in progressive states; the prescription drug battle of '03; and the views and proposals of some leading non-political health-care experts. There will be a modest book of readings (mostly journal and newspaper articles) from which short assignments of 10-20 pages will be made for the class. Time permitting, participants will have opportunities to volunteer for brief reports on topics of special interest to them.
Class is limited to 20 participants.
G. B. "Jim" Baldwin is a retired World Bank economist who has long been interested in the political process and in social reform. In his pre-war 'teens he was an admirer of FDR and the New Deal and of Sweden as a Middle Way between Communism and Capitalism. In college, he began a lifelong admiration for Reinhold Niebuhr, whose religious perspective he has found life's surest compass, even for a non-theist. After World War II, Jim's reformist instincts led him into a three-year study of coal nationalization in Great Britain. In the summer, Jim and his wife live in Randolph, NH, where he stills hikes with the Randolph Mountain Club.
