Scan barcode
A review by adamsw216
An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal
5.0
Every American and person living in America should read this book.
Our health is something we take for granted. It doesn't typically occupy our thoughts on a daily basis unless something is not right. At that point, we often must place our trust in the healthcare professionals to help us and act in our best interests. Unfortunately, time and time again people find themselves frustrated, unsatisfied, or even financially ruined by the healthcare system in the United States. Why is this?
Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal presents her case in this well-researched, even-handed presentation of statistics, numbers, and accounts of real personal experiences from patients. The bottom line: greed and profiteering has corrupted the healthcare industry to the point where financial gain has eclipsed the noble pursuit of healing the sick. We've all known this to be the case on some level, but to see it so carefully and methodically laid out by Rosenthal opens up new vistas of frustration and anger.
Rosenthal begins the book by outlining her 10 Economic Rules of the Dysfunctional Medical Market:
1) More treatment is always better. Default to the most expensive option.
2) A lifetime of treatment is preferable to a cure.
3) Amenities and marketing matter more than good care.
4) As technologies age, prices can rise rather than fall.
5) There is no free choice. Patients are stuck. And they’re stuck buying American.
6) More competitors vying for business doesn’t mean better prices; it can drive prices up, not down.
7) Economies of scale don’t translate to lower prices. With their market power, big providers can simply demand more.
8) There is no such thing as a fixed price for a procedure or test. And the uninsured pay the highest prices of all.
9) There are no standards for billing. There’s money to be made in billing for anything and everything.
10) Prices will rise to whatever the market will bear.
The first 2/3 of this book are spent explaining the history of healthcare in the US, as well as presenting facts and examples of how and why we have arrived at this point. Her points confirm and demonstrate the validity of her 10 Economic Rules listed above. The last 1/3 of the book is a primer on how to be a more vigilant "customer" of healthcare in America. This last part of the book, meant to empower us no doubt, simply contributes to the notion that the healthcare system is broken by requiring all of these somersaults and backflips just to seek medical care for even simple and common procedures without being bankrupted.
This is an important book--one that should be read by and understood by far more people than it likely will be.
Our health is something we take for granted. It doesn't typically occupy our thoughts on a daily basis unless something is not right. At that point, we often must place our trust in the healthcare professionals to help us and act in our best interests. Unfortunately, time and time again people find themselves frustrated, unsatisfied, or even financially ruined by the healthcare system in the United States. Why is this?
Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal presents her case in this well-researched, even-handed presentation of statistics, numbers, and accounts of real personal experiences from patients. The bottom line: greed and profiteering has corrupted the healthcare industry to the point where financial gain has eclipsed the noble pursuit of healing the sick. We've all known this to be the case on some level, but to see it so carefully and methodically laid out by Rosenthal opens up new vistas of frustration and anger.
Rosenthal begins the book by outlining her 10 Economic Rules of the Dysfunctional Medical Market:
1) More treatment is always better. Default to the most expensive option.
2) A lifetime of treatment is preferable to a cure.
3) Amenities and marketing matter more than good care.
4) As technologies age, prices can rise rather than fall.
5) There is no free choice. Patients are stuck. And they’re stuck buying American.
6) More competitors vying for business doesn’t mean better prices; it can drive prices up, not down.
7) Economies of scale don’t translate to lower prices. With their market power, big providers can simply demand more.
8) There is no such thing as a fixed price for a procedure or test. And the uninsured pay the highest prices of all.
9) There are no standards for billing. There’s money to be made in billing for anything and everything.
10) Prices will rise to whatever the market will bear.
The first 2/3 of this book are spent explaining the history of healthcare in the US, as well as presenting facts and examples of how and why we have arrived at this point. Her points confirm and demonstrate the validity of her 10 Economic Rules listed above. The last 1/3 of the book is a primer on how to be a more vigilant "customer" of healthcare in America. This last part of the book, meant to empower us no doubt, simply contributes to the notion that the healthcare system is broken by requiring all of these somersaults and backflips just to seek medical care for even simple and common procedures without being bankrupted.
This is an important book--one that should be read by and understood by far more people than it likely will be.