The medical record is a fundamental technology in modern healthcare. A perplexing question for healthcare is why over 20 years of digitisation have failed to produce one single coherent medical record available to all clinicians at the point of need? Using the perspectives of Science and Technology Studies (STS), this paper attempts to understand Medical Records (and their failed unification) through a historical account of the medical record. We will trace the origin of the medical record, its true invention in the 20th century and the struggle between the clinic and new discourses of Population Health.

Leveraging on the 2006 health insurance reform in the US, this paper studies the effect of the increase in insurance market size on the price of prescription drugs. The reform increases the health insurance coverage rate for the above 65s US citizens, and new insurance is managed by private insurers who also provide insurance for the below 65s. We document that the increase in insurance market size resulted from the reform reduced prices for the uninsured below 65s. The uninsured below 65s are not the direct beneficiaries of the reform. Price decreases more for the drugs used more frequently by the above 65s before the reform: the direct beneficiaries of the reform. Price also decreases more for the drugs used more by the uninsured below 65 before the reform. The results imply that insurance market size can affect the price by impacting the pricing strategy of the pharmacies and drug manufacturers, who take the demand from the insured and uninsured population into account.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America in 2016, a revival of white nationalist sentiments has emerged. His infamous campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” alludes to a return to a nostalgic national fantasy defined by a vision of white patriarchal supremacy. This call for a return to tradition and conservative values is underpinned by a highly racialised conception of reproductive politics. Behind the justification of the protection of foetal life, the pro-life movement under Trump’s presidency has consistently centered on defending traditional gender roles and Christian family values. This links the pro-life movement to a greater call for the preservation of the white hetero-family within the nation. This paper employs a thematic analysis of a selection of pro-life media sources, in order to examine the intersection between the pro-life movement and white nationalism under Trump. I conclude that under Trump’s presidency, the pro-life movement has become a technology of white nationalism and the preservation of white cultural domination for the ways that it draws on narratives of conservative family values, white motherhood, the preservation of America’s supposed white Christian heritage and fears over economic and cultural displacement of a white America.