Leading authority on the politics of health care
and health care reform.


Highlights

Jonathan Oberlander is a political scientist and leading authority on health care politics and policy. His perspective is deeply researched, historically informed, and practical rather than ideological.

He has special expertise in the politics of health care reform and has researched the Obama administration's plan for health care reform and cost control. Jonathan also has studied social medicine, including Medicare, Medicaid, and various efforts by states to expand health care coverage.

Recent articles have examined topics ranging from Medicare’s prescription drug benefit to lessons from past health reform episodes and the fight over renewing the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Jonathan is the author and co-editor of two books on health care policy.

In The Political Life of Medicare, Dr. Oberlander chronicles the political development of Medicare from 1965 to the present and analyzes how the political consensus that produced Medicare has subsequently unraveled.

The Social Medicine Reader gathers essays into three volumes on Patients, Doctors and Illness; Social Contributions to Health, Difference and Inequity; and Health Policy, Markets and Medicine.

Jonathan Oberlander is associate professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy & Management at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Political Science and teaches in the School of Medicine.

Articles and opinion pieces by Professor Oberlander have appeared in Health Affairs, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Canadian Medical Association Journal, International Journal of Health Services, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

The Politics of Health Care Reform

Few people know more than Jonathan Oberlander about the efforts now underway in the Obama administration to reform the healthcare system and to control its costs—or the political obstacles and issues these efforts must overcome. He has studied past (and recurring) attempts to reform healthcare going back to 1912 and the lessons that history has to offer about what works and what doesn't. He's also studied the reform movements and healthcare systems of other countries and the lessons these other models provide for America. And he has studied the efforts that some states have made in reforming health care more locally. In addition to his breadth of knowledge in the politics of health care, Dr. Oberlander brings to his audiences an independent perspective that's practical rather than ideological in approach.

Credentials

• Associate professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy & Management, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
• Adjunct Professor, Department of Political Science, UNC-Chapel Hill.
• Author, The Political Life of Medicare
• Co-editor, The Social Medicine Reader
• Visiting scholar, Russell Sage Foundation (2008-2009 academic year) Ph.D. and M.A. in political science, Yale University; B.A. in political science, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill