Health Care: What's Next?

Table of Contents

In Essence

"Bad Contribution" by Norman Ornstein, in The New Republic (June 10, 1996), 1220 19th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

"Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr-Hamilton Duel" by Joanne B. Freeman, in The William and Mary Quarterly (Apr. 1996), Box 8781, Williamsburg, Va. 23187-8781.

"Hollywood Goes to Congress" by Tom Rosenstiel, in Media Studies Journal (Winter 1996), Columbia Univ., 2950 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10027.

"Distant Compassion" by Clifford Orwin, in The National Interest (Spring 1996), 1112 16th St. N.W., Ste. 540, Washington, D.C. 20036.

"The Interservice Competition Solution" by Harvey M. Sapolsky, in Breakthroughs (Spring 1996), Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 292 Main St. (E38-603), Cambridge, Mass. 02139.

"Mortgage Lending in Boston: Interpreting HMDA Data" by Alicia H. Munnell, Geoffrey M. B. Tootell, Lynn E. Browne, and James McEneaney, in The American Economic Review (Mar. 1996), American Economic Assn., 2014 Broadway, Ste. 305, Nashville, Tenn. 37203.

"The Crusade That’s Killing Prosperity" by Lester Thurow, in The American Prospect (Mar.–Apr. 1996), New Prospect Inc., P.O. Box 383080, Cambridge, Mass. 02238.

"The Poverty of Impoverishment Theory: The Economic Well-Being of the Elderly, 1890–1950" by Brian Gratton, and "Myth of the Industrial Scrap Heap: A Revisionist View of Turn-of-the-Century American Retirement" by Susan B. Carter and Richard Sutch, in The Journal of Economic History (Mar. 1996), 302 Thayer St., Box 1981, Brown Univ., Providence, R.I. 02912.

"Toward a New Conception of the Environment-Competitiveness Relationship" by Michael E. Porter and Claas van der Linde, and "Tightening Environmental Standards: The Benefit-Cost or the No-Cost Paradigm?" by Karen Palmer, Wallace E. Oates, and Paul R. Portney, in The Journal of Economic Perspectives (Fall 1995), American Economic Assn., 2014 Broadway, Ste. 305, Nashville, Tenn. 37203–2418.

"A Re-evaluation of the Economic Consequences of Divorce" by Richard R. Peterson, "The Economic Consequences of Divorce Are Still Unequal" by Lenore J. Weitzman, and "Statistical Errors, Faulty Conclusions, Misguided Policy: Reply to Weitzman" by Peterson, in American Sociological Review (June 1996), Dept. of Sociology, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz. 85721.

"The Future of Baseball" by Shannon Dortch, in American Demographics (Apr. 1996), 127 W. State St., Ithaca, N.Y. 14850.

"The Rise and Demise of the American Orphanage" by Dale Keiger, in Johns Hopkins Magazine (Apr. 1996), 212 Whitehead Hall, Johns Hopkins Univ., 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Md. 21218–2692; "Orphanages: The Real Story" by Richard B. McKenzie, in The Public Interest (Spring 1996), 1112 16th St. N.W., Ste. 530, Washington, D.C. 20036.

"What We Know about Cheating in College" by Donald L. McCabe and Linda Klebe Trevino, in Change (Jan.–Feb. 1996), Heldref Publications, 1319 18th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036–1802.

"Kant’s Third Image: Systemic Sources of the Liberal Peace" by Wade I. Huntley, in International Studies Quarterly (Mar. 1996), 210 Woodburn Hall, Dept. of Political Science, Indiana Univ., Bloomington, Ind. 47405–6001.

"Do We Have the Structure of DNA Right?" by Robert Root-Bernstein, in Art Journal (Spring 1996), College Art Assn., 275 Seventh Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001.

"Apocalypse Not" by Jon Palfreman, in Technology Review (Apr. 1996), Bldg. W59, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.

"City Lights" by James Bradley, in Metropolis (April 1996), 177 E. 87th St., New York, N.Y. 10128.

"What Should We Ask about Intelligence?" by Robert J. Sternberg, in The American Scholar (Spring 1996), Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1811 Q St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009.

"What Happens when American Art Goes Public" by Peter Plagens, in New England Review (Summer 1995), Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. 05753.

"Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust" by Thomas Doherty, in American Literature (Mar. 1996), Box 90020, Duke Univ., Durham, N.C. 27708–0020.

"The Duke’s Blues" by Stanley Crouch, in The New Yorker (Apr. 29 and May 6, 1996), 20 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036.

"Dateline Bangalore: Third World Technopolis" by John Stremlau, in Foreign Policy (Spring 1996), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2400 N St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037–1153.

"Cuba’s Long Reform" by Wayne S. Smith, in Foreign Affairs (Mar.–Apr. 1996), 58 E. 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10021; "You Can’t Get There from Here" by Ann Wroe, in The Economist (Apr. 6, 1996), 25 St. James’s St., London SW1A 1HG; "Fidel and Mr. Smith" by Charles Lane, in The New Republic (Mar. 25, 1996), 1220 19th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

"Cultural Captivity: Japan’s Crippled Financial System" by Eugene Dattel, in World Policy Journal (Spring 1996), World Policy Institute, New School for Social Research, 65 Fifth Ave., Ste. 413, New York, N.Y. 10003.

Book Reviews

WHY THINGS BITE BACK: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences. By Edward Tenner. Knopf. 352 pp. $26

DEMOCRACY'S DISCONTENT: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. By Michael J. Sandel. Belknap of Harvard Univ. Press. 417 pp. $24.95

THE OPEN SORE OF A CONTINENT: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis. By Wole Soyinka. Oxford University Press. 176 pp. $19.95

Essays

The “father of scientific management” always looked back fondly on his days as an apprentice in a small manufacturing firm. It was an experience he believed every engineer should have. Ironically, his system of industrial efficiency helped make that impossible.

Robert Kanigel

During the 1990s, the WQ published a regular poetry feature edited by a series of distinguished poets, who selected and introduced the works of other writers past and present. After the death of our first poetry editor, the Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky, Anthony Hecht, one of his successors, published this tribute.

Anthony Hecht

Two years ago, the United States was caught up in a furious national debate over the future of its healthcare system. That debate is over, with nothing substantial accomplished, and most Americans probably believe that its passing spelled the end of any significant change in the healthcare system in the immediate future. Today, however, that system is changing right before our eyes.

Caroline Poplin

Years of debate have not produced much agreement on the future of the American health-care system. But people who study the system are virtually unanimous in their diagnosis of what's wrong with the country's traditional forms of health-care financing. The patient (with advice from a doctor) ultimately decides what services and care are purchased, but another party--an insurance company, or the government, through Medicaid or Medicare--pays the bills.

Peter J. Ferrara

Primary care is a more effective medicine not only for people with simple ailments but for those with illnesses that are serious and complex.

Eric J. Cassell

One of the legacies of the national debate over the Clinton health-care plan is a new public ambivalence about the value of medical research and technology.

Louis Lasagna

Even were we to make angels out of doctors and philanthropists out of insurance company executives, we would not stem the rise of health-care costs. That is because this increase, far from being a symptom of modern medicine’s failure, is a product of its success.

Willard Gaylin

The missiles that the People’s Republic of China launched toward Taiwan this spring were but the latest salvo in a long and sometimes heated dispute over control of the tiny island. Such threats of force, Anne Thurston suggests, will do little to improve chances of reconciliation. The People’s Republic might be wiser to adopt some of the ways of its forward-moving neighbor.

Anne F. Thurston

The recent rediscovery of Rebecca West’s masterful study of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), has brought deserved recognition to one of the more remarkable minds of this century. As her biographer here shows, West’s early stand against communism made her an isolated voice of conscience on the British Left.

Carl Rollyson

The front door of my high school was a thousand feet from the front door of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but Greenland might as well have blocked the distance for all the travel there was between the two. Not once, in four years, were we directed to the museum, and the museum, in those chilly 1950s, folded its arms against the temptation to reach out.

James Morris

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