This book represents the first comparative study of how health policy is made in leading industrial nations. Using detailed case histories of the UK, the US and Germany, it shows that health care systems and modern states are indissolubly bound together.

Part 1 Understanding the health care state: identifying the health care state; the embedded nature of the health care state; capitalism, democracy and health care; choosing the cases. Part 2 Building the health care state: how states are built; the United Kingdom - building a command and control state; Germany - building a corporatist state; the United States - building a supply state; democratic politics and health care states. Part 3 Governing consumption: consumption and commodification; the United Kingdom -consumption and the limits of citizenship; Germany - consumption and the limits of corporatism; the United States - from supply state to regulatory state; the converging government of consumption. Part 4 Governing doctors: professions, states and markets; the United Kingdom - doctors, the state and democracy; Germany - doctors, the state and corporatism; the United States -doctors, states and markets; states, doctors and private interest government. Part 5 Governing technology: medical technology and capitalist democracy; the United States - democracy, capitalism and technology; the United Kingdom and Germany - medical technology and industrial politics; property rights, medical technology and democracy. Part 6 Transforming the health care state: a puzzle restated; three systems of politics; embeddedness revisited; death or transfiguration?