Hackey, Robert B.

views updated

HACKEY, Robert B.

PERSONAL:

Married. Education: University of Rhode Island, B.A., 1987; Brown University, Ph.D., 1992. Hobbies and other interests: College basketball, model railroading, cooking, playing with his daughters.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Providence College, 549 River Ave., Providence, RI 02918-0001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

St. Anselm College, Manchester, NH, instructor, 1991-92; University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, instructor, 1993-99; Abbott Laboratories Executive Development Program, Milwaukee, WI, faculty member, 2001; Providence College, Providence, RI, currently professor of health policy and management. Brown University, visiting professor, 2003. Former program manager, Rhode Island Department of Health trauma-care system project.

AWARDS, HONORS:

President's Award for Teaching Excellence, Brown University, 1990; President's Citation for Excellence in Teaching, University of Massachusetts, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Rethinking Health Care Policy: The New Politics of State Regulation, Georgetown University Press (Washington, DC), 1998.

(Editor, with David A. Rochefort) The New Politics of State Health Policy, University Press of Kansas (Lawrence, KS), 2001.

Also contributor to professional journals, including Critical Sociology, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, Journal of Trauma, Medical Care Review, New England Journal of Public Policy, Polity, Social Science Quarterly, and Spectrum: The Journal of State Government. Member of editorial board, New England Journal of Political Science; former assistant managing editor, New England Journal of Public Policy.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his first book, Rethinking Health Care Policy: The New Politics of State Regulation, political scientist Robert B. Hackey examines the debate over public responsibility for heath care. Most of the attention in the United States looks at the question of national health care policies, but Hackey argues that most of the innovation in health care policy arises in state governments. "Specifically," stated Richard Himelfarb in the Political Science Quarterly, "he seeks to explain why some states choose to enact extensive regulations on health care while others work with private interests to control costs and still others cede power to the marketplace." "According to the author," Himelfarb continued, "the key to understanding this variation in policy making lies in the concept of policy regimes that encompass not just interest groups and politicians but also the institutions, rules, and norms that affect policy making." "This is an ambitious book, and it succeeds fully on one of the three goals the author seeks to accomplish," concluded American Political Science Review contributor Charles Barrilleaux. "It provides in-depth discussion and analysis of health policymaking in four states during a tumultuous time."

Hackey and his fellow editor David Rochefort reexamine the question of state-regulated health care in The New Politics of State Health Policy. The editors see the health care debate in the United States since 1994 as shaped by three separate forces: consumers, state governments, and private-sector heath care providers. "As nonprofit organizations changed to forprofits," wrote Lynne Bownds in the Journal of Economic Issues, "the culture of health care changed from one that valued the care of the vulnerable to one devoted to the care of the shareholders." "This book," declared Alice M. Jackson in Perspectives on Political Science, "is for anyone interested in federalism and the expanding role of governors and state legislatures in health care policy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, June, 1999, Charles Barrilleaux, review of Rethinking Health Care Policy: The New Politics of State Regulation, p. 454.

Journal of Economic Issues, March, 2002, Lynne Bownds, review of The New Politics of State Health Policy, p. 214.

Perspectives on Political Science, spring, 2002, Alice M. Jackson, review of The New Politics of State Health Policy, p. 107.

Political Science Quarterly, winter, 1998, Richard Himelfarb, review of Rethinking Health Care Policy, p. 714.