The political economy of medical care: An explanation of the composition, nature, and functions of the present health sector of the United States

This chapter analyses the social classes and economic structures of the United States, both outside and within the health sector. It examines different degrees by which social class influences and controls the financing and delivery of care in health institutions. The chapter examines these social class influences on the institutions of production, reproduction, and legitimization determines the composition, nature, and functions of the health sector. It outlines different sectors of our economy and their class composition, as a necessary prologue to explaining the nature, role, and functions of health sector. A possible response by government to that popular alienation could be the establishment of measures such as income maintenance or national health insurance, aimed at integrating that alienated population into the political system. Unionization of the medical profession would be a symptom of its proletarianization, so that the incipient but steady trend toward unionization of the medical profession may be an indication of things to come in the healthsector.