The Affordable Care Act: A National Healthcare Crisis: Monopoly, Power, and the Abandonment of Public Stewardship

The Affordable Care Act American healthcare is often described as broken, unaffordable, or politically impossible to fix. Yet these explanations obscure a more uncomfortable truth: the system did not fail by accident, nor is it broken beyond repair. It failed because it was never intentionally designed as a coherent national framework and has since been shaped by consolidation, political avoidance, and the steady erosion of public trusteeship. In this book, Eric Lawrence Frazier, MBA, examines the structural origins of the American healthcare system and traces how historical contingency—particularly the rise of employer-based insurance—evolved into a fragmented marketplace dominated by concentrated corporate power. Through careful analysis of healthcare economics, antitrust law, federal spending patterns, and Congressional behavior, the book exposes the gap between political narrative and fiscal reality. Rather than focusing on partisan slogans or consumer-facing subsidies, the book identifies the primary drivers of rising healthcare costs: insurer and hospital consolidation, vertical integration, pharmaceutical intermediaries, and the persistent failure to enforce existing competition laws. It argues that Congressional inaction has become a form of policy—one that protects entrenched interests while shifting costs and risk onto families, workers, and taxpayers. The book goes beyond diagnosis to present two pragmatic national solutions grounded in existing institutions: a civilian-accessible healthcare system modeled on the Veterans Health Administration, and a voluntary Medicare buy-in available to Americans of all ages. These proposals are evaluated not as ideological experiments, but as operational frameworks capable of restoring competition, discipline, and accountability to healthcare markets. At its core, this book is not only about healthcare policy. It is about representation. It challenges the assumption that elected officials continue to function as trustees of the public interest and confronts the consequences of a Congress increasingly disconnected from the lived realities of the people it governs. Written for policymakers, journalists, scholars, and engaged citizens, this book offers a clear-eyed examination of how America arrived at its current healthcare crisis—and what institutional courage would be required to move beyond it.
ASIN: 1949722260
VSKU: BVV.1949722260.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Frazier MBA, Eric Lawrence
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item is very worn but is perfectly usable. Signs of wear can include aesthetic issues such as scratches, dents, worn and creased covers, folded page corners and minor liquid stains. All pages and the cover are intact, but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include moderate to heavy amount of notes and highlighting, but the text is not obscured or unreadable. Page edges may have foxing age related spots and browning . May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.