Social Security and Medicare

Social Security and Medicare are of compelling concern to virtually all Americans because they impact lives so enduringly and directly through the protection they afford and the costs they entail. It is, indeed, the extraordinary social welfare commitment these programs represent and their concomitant expense that provoke such determined support and such fiscal concern. Kingson and Berkowitz provide a thorough, balanced, and highly accessible explanation of Social Security and Medicare. They explain the dilemmas facing policymakers and describe, through historical development, how the programs evolved and their present status. The authors superbly convey the complexity of issues while also clearly presenting the factual information essential to the understanding and discussion. Such key considerations as the adequacy of protection, the financing problems, issues of fairness, the response to disability, and the health care needs of the elderly are particularly focused on--the authors' are sensitive to the social welfare nature of the programs. A truly essential book not only for the classroom but the offices and living rooms of writers, administrators, planners, policymakers, social service practitioners, and the general public.

ERIC R. KINGSON is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. He earlier taught at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He was an adviser to the 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform. Kingson currently serves on the editorial board of The Gerontologist and as a member of the boards of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the Central Boston Elder Services. He is the author or co-author of The Ties That Bind: The Interdependence of Generations and The Diversity of the Baby Boom Generation: Implications for Their Retirement Years.

EDWARD D. BERKOWITZ is Professor of History and Public Policy and Chairman of the History Department at George Washington University. He has served as the Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in Health Care Finance at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in 1987 and as the Visiting Scholar at the National Academy of Social Insurance in 1988. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Policy History and the Journal of Disability Policy Studies. Berkowitz is author or co-author of America's Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan (1991) and Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth Century Reform (Praeger, 1988, 2nd ed., with Kim McQuaid). He is also editor of Social Security after Fifty (Greenwood Press, 1987).

ERIC R. KINGSON is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at Boston College. He earlier taught at the University of Maryland at Baltimore. He was an adviser to the 1983 National Commission on Social Security Reform. Kingson currently serves on the editorial board of The Gerontologist and as a member of the boards of the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the Central Boston Elder Services. He is the author or co-author of The Ties That Bind: The Interdependence of Generations and The Diversity of the Baby Boom Generation: Implications for Their Retirement Years.

EDWARD D. BERKOWITZ is Professor of History and Public Policy and Chairman of the History Department at George Washington University. He has served as the Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in Health Care Finance at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in 1987 and as the Visiting Scholar at the National Academy of Social Insurance in 1988. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Policy History and the Journal of Disability Policy Studies. Berkowitz is author or co-author of America's Welfare State: From Roosevelt to Reagan (1991) and Creating the Welfare State: The Political Economy of Twentieth Century Reform (Praeger, 1988, 2nd ed., with Kim McQuaid). He is also editor of Social Security after Fifty (Greenwood Press, 1987).