150 Years of ObamaCare.

• Author: Gaffney, Gary S.
• Position: Book review

150 Years of ObamaCare

by Daniel Dawes

In 150 Years of ObamaCare, health care lawyer Daniel Dawes provides such a resource. A gifted storyteller with an extraordinary perspective, Dawes deftly reveals the back-story behind the voluminous Affordable Care Act. What's more, the book includes a condensed (yet comprehensive) history of America's health-equity movement; the long, winding road that led to current U.S. health care policy. Thus, ObamaCare is not only an authoritative narrative on the ACA, but a solid historical resource that helps debunk many misconceptions about health care reform.

Through easy-to-read charts integrated within a well-organized and well-resourced narrative, Dawes reveals how Americans have actually been fighting for quality health care since the birth of the nation. Indeed, he reports how the country's first health care law was championed by President John Adams himself (who believed that U.S. "seamen" should receive free health care); secured in 1798.

Dawes then traverses countless Presidencies and Congresses, identifying health care bills introduced --only to be defeated, restricted, or marginalized. He explains how previous reform efforts typically failed due to war, economic recession, or politics. He also discusses bills that did pass, becoming integrated into the patchwork-quilt health care policy that preceded the ACA. Dawes chronicles how (after "seamen") Congress authorized health care for veterans; the mentally ill; disabled; workers; the elderly. In this way, Dawes breathes life into the personalities, politicians, and lobbyists who for centuries impacted this nation's health care. He reveals just how America's evolving health care policies were typically directed at one specific group--and that the ACA's scope is far more comprehensive than anything previously seen.

After chronicling the history of U.S. health care reform, Dawes transitions to the inside story of the ACA--a narrative he delivers with extraordinary candor and detail.

Dawes memorializes the votes, the amendments, and the various attempts to pass the act. He integrates informative charts and graphs into the text; and identifies both the "resistance"...