The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as ObamaCare or PPACA), which was signed into US law in 2010, generated a lot of noise from both supporters and detractors. This book argues that the changes introduced by ObamaCare were, in the long history of government intervention in the US health system, generally not as new or novel as claimed.

The scope of the changes introduced by ObamaCare is very wide and covers, among others: the health insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, employers, employees, or the uninsured. The structure of the book shows the individual causes, key assumptions, and impacts of the reform on individual elements or areas of the US health system. One of the most important aspects of the work is analysis of the phenomenon of the so-called ‘death spiral’. The changes introduced by ObamaCare reform make it possible to investigate the causes of this phenomenon on a country-wide scale and enable a broader analysis of its effects.

The book will be of great interest to readers in the economics, management and policy of health and health care.