As countries confront new health care challenges in the 21st century, their health care systems reflect the problems and political settlements of an earlier age. Meeting these new challenges requires reform of existing health care system arrangements while reconciling the goals of equitable access to quality care at an affordable price. This book compares health care reforms in industrialized nations and the Global South to uncover the similarities and differences in their problems and solutions. It examines the struggle over the Affordable Care Act and its alternatives in the United States, major health care reforms in Germany in the new century, and South Africa's efforts to combat AIDS and construct a comprehensive health care system for all. These particular reforms reflect the underlying configuration of politics in each country.

1. The Intersection of Health and Politics
2. The United States: An Ambivalent Journey toward Universal Coverage
3. Germany: Modernizing National Health Insurance to Meet New Challenges
4. South Africa: Confronting the Legacies of Apartheid
5. Conclusions and Prospects

Susan Giaimo is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Departments of Political Science and Biomedical Sciences at Marquette University, USA. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program at the University of California at Berkeley, USA. She also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.