Dr. Christy Ford Chapin is Associate Professor of twentieth-century U.S. political, business, and economic history as well as capitalism studies at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Chapin has published articles in the Journal of Policy History, Studies in American Political Development, and the Business History Review. Her book, Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System (Cambridge University Press, 2015) won the 2016 Ralph Gomory Prize from the Business History Conference. 

In this episode, we talk about the history of health insurance in the United States: from its inception in a smoky room in 1940s Chicago to its evolution into its most recent instantiation, the ACA ("Obamacare").