Colleen Grogan – Grow and Hide: The History of America’s Health Care State

Join us for a panel discussion of Grow and Hide: The History of America’s Health Care State with author Colleen Grogan, Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, James Morone, John Hazen White Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Brown University, Miranda Yaver, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Wheaton College, and Eric Patashnik, Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Political Science, Chair, Department of Political Science at Brown University. In her newly published book, Grow and Hide, Professor Grogan provides a sweeping history of the American healthcare state that reveals the public has been intentionally misled about the true role of government. The US government has always invested federal, state, and local dollars in public health protection and prevention. Despite this public funding, however, Americans typically believe the current system is predominantly comprised of private actors with little government interference. In what Grogan terms “the grow-and-hide regime,” the US has created a publicly financed system while framing it as the opposite. Today, the state’s role is larger than ever, yet it remains largely hidden because stakeholders–namely, private actors and their allies in government–have repeatedly, and successfully, presented the illusion of minimal.