The Future of Social Insurance: Insights From the Pandemic

The Future of Social Insurance: Insights From the Pandemic is a collection of essays by 14 previous recipients (2004-2019) of the Robert M. Ball Award for Outstanding Achievements in Social Insurance, part of the 2020 Ball Award: Campaign for Social Insurance. As recipients of the prestigious Ball Award, the contributors represent the highest level of expertise in social insurance and related issues. Each essay examines the role of social insurance in meeting the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. This compendium includes reflections on Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, economics, racial inequality, long-term care, and Medicaid.

As editor Thomas Bethell says in his introduction to the compendium: “Bob Ball saw cataclysms as catalysts. He knew that if there had been no Great Depression in 1933 we would never have enacted Social Security in 1935; that if there had been no presidential assassination in 1963 we would never have set aside politics-as-usual long enough to enact Medicare in 1965. I wonder what opportunities he might detect in the confluence of cataclysms in 2020.  There may be some answers to that question in these pages.”

Download the The Future of Social Insurance: Insights From the Pandemic or individual essays:

• The social safety net: the gaps that COVID-19 spotlights | Henry Aaron

     Also available at Brookings Institution

• Addressing ‘unpalatable realities’ laid bare by today’s crises | Nancy Altman
• Why a public/private universal health insurance system is still the right approach | Stuart H. Altman

     Also available at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University

• Medicare as a safety net in national emergencies | Karen Davis
• A social insurance view of bankruptcy law | Peter Diamond
• Social insurance: proof of concept | Carroll L. Estes
• Social insurance and our delicate balance | Stephen C. Goss
• Reimagining the future of social insurance in the wake of the pandemic | Theodore R. Marmor
• What will we learn from the coronavirus crisis? | Marilyn Moon
• Social insurance is the best way to save—now more than ever | Alicia H. Munnell

     Also available on MarketWatch

• Preparing for the next economic collapse: should social insurance play a bigger role? | Robert D. Reischauer

     Also available at the Urban Institute

• Social insurance needs to be flexible going forward | John Rother

Also available at the National Coalition on Health Care

• Reclaiming a vision that lost its way | William E. Spriggs
• Nursing home deaths: the safety net unravels | Bruce C. Vladeck