November 12, 01

Vol. 17 , No. 05   


View Entire Issue (Vol. 17 , No. 05)

The Politics of Medicare
THEODORE MARMOR
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2001

How did our Medicare program originate-when no other nation had a public health insurance program for the elderly? What changes and continuities have marked the program since its introduction in 1967? Theodore Marmor, Yale professor and author of The Politics of Medicare (1972), will explore these issues leading up to the current struggles over prescription drugs, managed care, and patient rights.

Marmor is Professor of Public Policy and Management at the Yale School of Management, Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation postdoctoral program in Health Policy. His research interests lie in the politics of the contemporary welfare state in the US and in other OECD nations. A prolific author, Marmor has published eleven books, more than one hundred articles, and frequent op-ed articles in newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.

Marmor began his public career as a special assistant to Wilbur Cohen, Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (the precursor to today's Department of Health and Human Services). His foray into academia was marked by positions at Minnesota's School of Public Affairs (as Associate Dean), at the University of Chicago, and at Yale, where he headed the Center for Health Services before taking on his current positions. At the same time, Marmor has been very much involved in politics himself. He served on President Carter's Commission, was a senior social policy advisor to Walter Mondale's presidential campaign, and frequently testifies before Congress on medical reform and welfare issues. Marmor is an emeritus fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and of the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Marmor takes health care quite personally: he plays squash daily (having won the 1998 national championship for those over 55 years), pursues fly fishing, and fervently believes in having a glass of wine a day-preferably if its from among his own vast collection.

Professor Marmor's lecture at the Athenaeum is the last in the series Health Care: New Realities.