Alan B. Cohen, David C. Colby, Keith A. Wailoo, and Julian A. Zelizer, eds., Medicare and Medicaid at 50: America’s Entitlement Programs in the Age of Affordable Care

“Health care is a right, not a privilege”: on the official celebration of the 50th anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid in July 2015, President Obama hailed the programs as symbols of what he claimed to be a “fundamental American belief.” While one may see this as more rhetoric than reality in a country where access to care is still not viewed as a right of citizenship, the importance of these two landmark programs cannot be contested. One in three Americans now gets health coverage through e..