Abstract
At first glance, the differences between health and pension policies in the United States appear stark. Lacking national health insurance—a trait often used to single out the United States among welfare states—the United States relies primarily on employers and individuals to finance medical care. Since some people are unemployed, others work for employers who do not offer health insurance, and few can afford to buy health insurance on their own, many Americans remain without coverage. The government fills in some of the gaps by offering health insurance to almost all of the elderly and many of the permanently disabled, children, and the poor. In contrast, the US government provides a retirement pension to virtually every senior citizen. Social Security, the core program, has been the single largest item in the national budget for years. Private pensions supplement, rather than replace, Social Security. Thus, although health care is largely private (but with the federal government being the largest single payer), pensions are fundamentally public (but with an accompanying, less developed private pension system).
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© 2008 Christopher Howard and Edward D. Berkowitz
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Howard, C., Berkowitz, E.D. (2008). Extensive but Not Inclusive: Health Care and Pensions in the United States. In: Béland, D., Gran, B. (eds) Public and Private Social Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230228771_4
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