Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mediating Citizenship Through The Lens Of Consumerism: Frames In The American Medicare Reform Debates Of 2003-2004, Emily West

Emily E. West

Access to health care is an issue that challenges the imagined boundary between being a ‘consumer’ and being a ‘citizen’. This is especially true in the United States where market-based solutions to providing health care have historically been favored over care organized through government. In the recent debate over how to organize prescription drug coverage for seniors in the United States, stakeholders quoted in the press were more likely to position health care as a consumer issue rather than as an issue of basic rights that accompany citizenship. As scholars such as Lizabeth Cohen (2003) have illustrated, being a ‘consumer’ …