This article assesses recent studies of the history of welfare states and proposes an alternative interpretation of the history of policy for health services. Health policy, like policy for retirement income, job security and unemployment, social services and housing, has been profoundly influenced by the politics of economic productivity, social justice, and demographic change in each country. However, health policy has also been guided by perceptions of the nature and course of disease and opinions about the probability that particular medical interventions, organized and distributed in particular ways, would ameliorate its effects.
