Bringing together forty-five experts from the US, Canada and the UK and across a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, this companion is unique in its broad assessment of the ways in which health has become an increasingly politicised concept over the last seventy-five years. It takes a multi-layered view of the development of US health care by examining its political dimensions from historical, cultural, medical, sociological, legal, ethical and environmental perspectives. Chapters consider major health institutions and the federal policies that guide them, but also...