How have Americans grappled with the moral and financial issues of
veterans' health care?
In the World War I era, veterans fought for a unique right: access to
government-sponsored health care. In the process, they built a pillar of
American social policy. Burdens of War explores how the establishment
of the veterans' health system marked a reimagining of modern veterans'
benefits and signaled a pathbreaking validation of the power of
professionalized institutional medical care.
Adler reveals that a veterans' health system came about incrementally,
amid skepticism from legislators, doctors, and army officials concerned
about the burden of long-term obligations, monetary or otherwise, to
ex-service members. She shows how veterans' welfare shifted from
centering on pension and domicile care programs rooted in the nineteenth
century to direct access to health services. She also traces the way
that fluctuating ideals about hospitals and medical care influenced
policy at the dusk of the Progressive Era; how race, class, and gender
affected the health-related experiences of soldiers, veterans, and
caregivers; and how interest groups capitalized on a tense political and
social climate to bring about change.
The book moves from the 1910s--when service members requested better
treatment, Congress approved new facilities and increased funding, and
elected officials expressed misgivings about who should have access to
care--to the 1930s, when the economic crash prompted veterans to
increasingly turn to hospitals for support while bureaucrats,
politicians, and doctors attempted to rein in the system. By the eve of
World War II, the roots of what would become the country's largest
integrated health care system were firmly planted and primed for growth.
Drawing readers into a critical debate about the level of responsibility
America bears for wounded service members, Burdens of War is a unique
and moving case study.
