PhD 1995 Political Science, Yale University
MPhil 1993 Political Science, Yale University
MA 1990 Political Science, Yale University
BA 1989 Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jonathan Oberlander is professor of Social Medicine in the School of Medicine and professor of Health Policy & Management in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Political Science. During 2015-2025, he served as chair of the Department of Social Medicine and from 2019-2025 he was editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.
Dr. Oberlander’s research and teaching interests include health care politics and policy, health care reform, Medicare, and American politics and public policy. He is author of The Political Life of Medicare (University of Chicago Press) and co-editor of the 2-volume series The Social Medicine Reader, 3rd edition, (Volume I, Ethics and Cultures of Biomedicine and Volume II, Differences and Inequalities, (Duke University Press). His recent work explores health care policy under the Biden and Trump administrations, the politics of the Affordable Care Act, partisan polarization in health policy, health care cost control, Medicare reform, and health care reform.
In the School of Medicine, Dr. Oberlander teaches health care policy and social and health systems to medical students. In the Gillings School of Global Public Health, he teaches courses on health politics and policy to undergraduate and graduate students.
Oberlander speaks regularly to community groups, medical professionals, and non-academic audiences on health care reform, the Affordable Care Act, and Medicare, trying to translate the complexity and technical detail of health policy into something more understandable and accessible. He has commented on health care politics for a number of media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the New York Review of Books, National Public Radio, the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Company, Politico, CBS News, and PBS.
Oberlander holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Yale University, and a B.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
