title: Critical Anthropology of Global Health "takes a stand" statement: a critical medical anthropological approach to the U.S.'s Affordable Care Act.
abstract: The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010--the U.S.'s first major health care reform in over half a century-has sparked new debates in the United States about individual responsibility, the collective good, and the social contract. Although the ACA aims to reduce the number of the uninsured through the simultaneous expansion of the private insurance industry and government-funded Medicaid, critics charge it merely expands rather than reforms the existing fragmented and costly employer-based health care system. Focusing in particular on the ACA's individual mandate and its planned Medicaid expansion, this statement charts a course for ethnographic contributions to the on-the-ground impact of the ACA while showcasing ways critical medical anthropologists can join the debate. We conclude with ways that anthropologists may use critiques of the ACA as a platform from which to denaturalize assumptions of "cost" and "profit" that underpin the global spread of market-based medicine more broadly.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Denver.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Horton
authors.forename: Cesar
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Abadía
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mulligan
authors.forename: Jennifer Jo
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D060432:Anthropology, Medical; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D008484:Medicaid; D058991:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; D014481:United States
keywords: Affordable Care Act; Medicaid; critical medical anthropology; health insurance; neoliberalism