Money, Medicine, and Malpractice in American Society

The American Way is incompatible with the U.S. experience of post-World War II capitalism. National and individual self-determination are collapsing in the face of profit-seeking, social compulsions, and the imperatives of global competition. Iain Hay states that the illusion of free choice and the misguided rhetoric of individualism remain: they mask new realities of compulsion and collectivism. This cultural contradiction is thoroughly analyzed by Hay from an unusual, outside perspective through an investigation of the development of medical liability insurance and its implications for tort law reform and health care provision in the United States.

Money, Medicine, and Malpractice in American Society transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries to provide a straightforward account of circumstances giving rise to particular forms of legal, medical, and social regulation in the United States. Hay explores the roots of change in medical and legal regulation in the United States through an inquiry into medical malpractice and health care costs in the ever-changing domestic and worldwide arena. It provides the first comprehensive association of American medical liability issues, health care spending, and post-War national and international contexts. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and doctors as it provides a useful framework for understanding legal and medical change associated with medical liability and its insurance.

IAIN HAY is a Professor at Flinders University, South Australia He is the author of The Caring Commodity: The Provision of Health Care in New Zealand (1989).