Without national health insurance, welfare functions get absorbed piecemeal into existing institutions

Evidence

How rational is a system where a man who has a heart attack on Sunday, watching football on television, gets nothing; while a man who has a heart attack on Monday, sitting at his desk reading a report, may be covered by workers’ compensation? In a country without a system of cradle-​to-​grave security, and in particular without national health insurance, piecemeal bits of what would be a full welfare system start sticking like burrs to existing institutions. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3843

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A compact institutional-mechanism insight: lacking a coherent welfare state, America’s safety-net functions accrete onto whatever institutions already exist, producing arbitrary line-drawing (Sunday vs Monday heart attack). Dense enough to reward rereading.
• XREF: connects to: Even welfare-expanding legislation retains a neoliberal institutional form — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s…, 628; Neoliberals sought minimal welfare that avoided legitimizing the welfare state — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 206; Postwar austerity in Italy delayed universal healthcare until 1978 — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 312

Broader Connections

• Even welfare-expanding legislation retains a neoliberal institutional form #complicates (0.82) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 628
• Neoliberals sought minimal welfare that avoided legitimizing the welfare state #complicates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 206