Americans believe that people should work hard and get ahead on their own, but when disaster strikes and they need help with retirement or disability, Americans as a whole should come to their aid.

Hacker's plan Health Care for America is outlined in a report for the Economic Policy Institute. Hathaway a Professor of Law at Yale University and former Supreme Court clerk to Sandra Day O'Connor. Cambridge University Press.

Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University and has written works on social policy health care reform and economic insecurity in the United States. His most recent book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Richer Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Simon & Schuster 2010) written with Paul Pierson of UC Berkeley argues that since the late 1970s the American middle and working classes have fallen further and further behind economically because policy changes in government favor the rich and super-rich.