Pt. 1. The hard road to success : one hundred years of past failures. Nixon comes close : our plan looks like a slam dunk, but ends with just a dunk -- Clinton chooses wrong : the colossal defeat of managed competition -- The past foreshadows the present : early attempts with little success -- pt. 2. Expanding health coverage piece by piece. The Hill-Burton program : how America's uninsured poor got a right to free hospital care -- The three-layer cake : Lyndon Johnson, Wilbur Mills, and the epic battle to enact Medicare -- Ooops! The brief life and death of Medicare catastrophic -- Ted Kennedy and the Republican Congress : HIPAA and SCHIP add two more pieces to the puzzle -- The unlikely saga of the Medicare prescription drug benefit -- pt. 3. Why can't Americans afford their health care? The battle to control health care costs. Controlling health costs : many attempts but few successes -- The last 20 years : health care spending keeps growing -- pt. 4. Success at last! Obama develops his plan -- Early players and done deals -- Baucus, Grassley, and the gang of six -- The summer of death panels -- The speaker carries the day -- The Senate and the Christmas Eve health bill -- Success at last -- How he did it : a political strategy learned from history -- The future is cost control.