Stuart Altman, professor of national health policy at Brandeis University, has advised five presidents, authored countless articles about health policy, and served on a variety of task forces aimed at fixing health care on both the national and state levels. These four decades as policy maker, adviser, and scholar play a central role in Altman’s new book, “Power, Politics, and Universal Health Care’’ which traces 100 years of debate and confrontation over one of the nation’s most intractable issues