Virtual Event: Jonathan Cohn

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes JONATHAN COHN—leading expert on health policy and a senior correspondent at HuffPost—for a discussion of his latest book, The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage. He will be joined in conversation by E.J. DIONNE, JR., Washington Post columnist and professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University.

Contribute to Support Harvard Book Store

While payment is not required, we are suggesting a $3 contribution to support this author series, our staff, and the future of Harvard Book Store—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge institution. In addition, by purchasing a copy of The Ten Year War on harvard.com, you support indie bookselling and the writing community during this difficult time.

About The Ten Year War

The Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare,” was the most sweeping and consequential piece of legislation of the last half century. It has touched nearly every American in one way or another, for better or worse, and become the defining political fight of our time.

In The Ten Year War, veteran journalist Jonathan Cohn offers the compelling, authoritative history of how the law came to be, why it looks like it does, and what it’s meant for average Americans. Drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews, plus private diaries, emails and memos, The Ten Year War takes readers to Capitol Hill and to town hall meetings, inside the West Wing and, eventually, into Trump Tower, as the nation's most powerful leaders try to reconcile pragmatism and idealism, self-interest and the public good, and ultimately two very different visions for what the country should look like.

At the heart of the book is the decades-old argument over what’s wrong with American health care and how to fix it. But the battle over healthcare was always about more than policy. The Ten Year War offers a deeper examination of how our governing institutions, the media, and the two parties have evolved, and the dysfunction those changes have left in their wake.

Praise for The Ten Year War

"With its original reporting and vivid storytelling, The Ten Year War is essential reading for everybody who wants to heal our sick health care system—and our sick political institutions too." —Robert Putnam, professor at Harvard University, author of Bowling Alone and The Upswing

"In Jonathan Cohn's expert telling, the story of Obamacare emerges not only as a policy challenge for the ages, but a gripping narrative about the breakdown of American politics that helps explain how we as a nation ended up in this gridlocked, uncertain place.” —Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker, co-author of The Man Who Ran Washington

"The Affordable Care Act fight was the defining legislative battle of the modern era—the one in which the true nature of our institutions and parties came into sharp relief, the one in which the strategies and ideologies that dominate politics now were forged and formed. Jonathan Cohn covered it brilliantly, and now he’s written the authoritative account it deserves." —Ezra Klein, founder and editor-at-large of Vox, author of Why We're Polarized