Dissecting American Health Care


Book Description

The intersection of health care, politics, and policy is a controversial one, and this book of lively essays takes on many of today’s hot health topics: alternative medicine, health care reform, screening mammograms, taxes to change behavior, gun control, and many more. Former Assistant Surgeon General Douglas Kamerow, a family doctor, journal editor, and NPR commentator, combines evidence, opinion, and humor in 47 essays from his health policy columns in the medical journal BMJ and his nationally broadcast radio commentaries.




Dissection


Book Description

This is a startling window into the education of American doctors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries-on both a visceral level and for its revealing cultural record. Cringe-worthy shots of medical students-bare-handed gentlemen and a few ladies in street clothes show off their scalpels, saws and textbooks-while their cadavers, mostly poor and black, are awkwardly posed, and exposed. In one stunning shot, a black woman looks out from behind the young students. "What are we to make of an African-American woman, standing, broom handle in hand, behind the dissection table, her gaze fixed on the camera?" the authors ask. More importantly, they conclude, the photo is now drawn "out of the shadows of history" where "we can at least bear witness." A blood-soaked dissection table makes you want to look away and the dark humor of students playing pranks with skeletons are both hilarious and horrible. Postcards sent to family and friends must have caused shock and awe for postmen and recipient alike. Here, a difficult glance into medicine's "uncomfortable past" offers a grand opportunity to understand the legacy doctors and patients live with, and benefit from, today. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.




Reinventing American Health Care


Book Description

The definitive story of American health care today—its causes, consequences, and confusions In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. It was the most extensive reform of America’s health care system since at least the creation of Medicare in 1965, and maybe ever. The ACA was controversial and highly political, and the law faced legal challenges reaching all the way to the Supreme Court; it even precipitated a government shutdown. It was a signature piece of legislation for President Obama’s first term, and also a ball and chain for his second. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania who also served as a special adviser to the White House on health care reform, has written a brilliant diagnostic explanation of why health care in America has become such a divisive social issue, how money and medicine have their own—quite distinct—American story, and why reform has bedeviled presidents of the left and right for more than one hundred years. Emanuel also explains exactly how the ACA reforms are reshaping the health care system now. He forecasts the future, identifying six mega trends in health that will determine the market for health care to 2020 and beyond. His predictions are bold, provocative, and uniquely well-informed. Health care—one of America’s largest employment sectors, with an economy the size of the GDP of France—has never had a more comprehensive or authoritative interpreter.




The American Health Care Paradox


Book Description

Considers why U.S. society is believed to be less healthy in spite of disproportionate spending on health care, identifying a lack of social services, outdated care allocations, and a resistance to government programs as the problem.




The Present Illness


Book Description

Beyond political posturing and industry quick-fixes, why is the American health care system so difficult to reform? Health care reform efforts are difficult to achieve and have been historically undermined by their narrow scope. In The Present Illness, Martin F. Shapiro, MD, PhD, MPH, weaves together history, sociology, extensive research, and his own experiences as a physician to explore the broad range of afflictions impairing US health care and explains why we won't be able to fix the system without making significant changes across society. With a sharp eye and ready humor, Shapiro dissects the ways all groups participating—clinicians and their organizations, medical schools and their faculty, hospitals and clinical corporations, scientists and the National Institutes of Health, insurers and manufacturers, governments and their policies, and also patients and the public—shape and reinforce a dysfunctional system. Shapiro identifies three major problems stymieing reform: commodification of care; values, expectations, unmet needs, attitudes, and personal limitations of participants; and toxic relationships and communication among these groups. Shapiro lays out a sweeping agenda of concrete actions to address the many factors contributing to the system's failings. Highlighting the interconnectedness of both the problems and potential solutions, he warns that piecemeal reform efforts will continue to be undermined by those who believe they have something to gain from the status quo. Although overhauling our health care system is daunting, Shapiro nonetheless concludes that we must push forward with a far more comprehensive effort in all sectors of health care and throughout society to create a system that is humane, effective, and just.




Introduction to US Health Policy


Book Description

The fourth edition of the essential guide to the contemporary US health care system. Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRL Health care reform has been a dominant theme in public discourse for decades now. The passage of the Affordable Care Act was a major milestone, but rather than quell the rhetoric, it has sparked even more heated debate. In the latest edition of Introduction to US Health Policy, Donald A. Barr reviews the current structure of the American health care system, describing the historical and political contexts in which it developed and the core policy issues that continue to confront us today. Barr’s comprehensive analysis explores the various organizations and institutions that make the US health care system work—or fail to work. He describes in detail the paradox of US health care—simultaneously the best in the world and one of the worst among developed countries—while introducing readers to broad cultural issues surrounding health care policy, such as access, affordability, and quality. Barr also discusses specific elements of US health care with depth and nuance, including insurance, especially Medicare and Medicaid. He scrutinizes the shift to for-profit managed care while analyzing the pharmaceutical industry, issues surrounding long-term care, the plight of the uninsured, the prevalence of medical errors, and the troublesome issue of nursing shortages. The thoroughly updated edition of this widely adopted text focuses on the Affordable Care Act. It explains the steps taken to carry out the Act, the changes to the Act based on recent Supreme Court decisions, the success of the Act in achieving the combined goals of improved access to care and constraining the costs of care, and the continuing political controversy regarding its future. Drawing on an extensive range of resources, including government reports, scholarly publications, and analyses from a range of private organizations, Introduction to US Health Policy provides scholars, policymakers, and health care providers with a comprehensive platform of ideas that is key to understanding and influencing the changes in the US health care system.




An Introduction to the US Health Care System


Book Description

Completely expanded and updated to account for the latest changes in the U.S. health care system, this best-selling text remains the most concise and balanced introduction to the domestic health care system. Like its predecessors, it provides an accessible overview of the basic components of the system: healthcare personnel, hospitals and other institutions, the federal government, financing and payment mechanisms, and managed care. Finally, it provides an insightful look at the prospects for health care reform. Steven Jonas, a revered expert in public health, has enlisted his colleagues, Drs. Raymond and Karen Goldsteen, to add their expertise in public health and health policy and management to this outstanding volume. All students of health care administration and policy, as well as practicing healthcare professionals who simply want a relatively brief overview of the system, will find it useful.




Hypochondria


Book Description

A hypochondriac CEO shares his journey through the broken American healthcare system, analyzing its costliness and proposing a solution. New York Times–bestselling author Hal Rosenbluth is the maverick executive behind Take Care Health Systems, the former president of Walgreens Health and Wellness and the now chairman and CEO of New Ocean Health Solutions. He is also a hypochondriac who amassed 227 medical claims in just two years. In Hypochondria: What’s Behind the Hidden Costs of Healthcare in America, Rosenbluth and co-author Marnie Hall venture through Rosenbluth’s 227 claims. They take a brutally honest, but humorous journey from the evolution of Rosenbluth’s global management firm to his onset of Type 2 Diabetes, a tale woven with sleeping meds, nocturnal PB&J sandwiches, and anti-anxiety drugs; to founding a company with the youngest Johnson & Johnson president and his most recent entry to digital healthcare. Hypochondria is not just a memoir. Along the way, the authors address the broader impact that each stakeholder—health plans, providers, health systems, and big pharma—have on the nation’s overstressed healthcare system. The book also offers a well-rounded guide to the traditional and not-so-typical solutions that can help people manage illness anxiety. Entertaining and enlightening, Hypochondria opens a new dialogue about how the U.S. can get better at managing health and arresting costs of care, which includes promoting greater discussion amongst patients, families, providers, employers, and healthcare executives. This book should serve as a beacon for change, unraveling the commercialization of healthcare, dissecting Big Pharma’s role in America’s pill-popping culture, and proposing alternative, disruptive solutions.




Health Care for Some


Book Description

“Skillfully chronicles America’s struggles to make health care a right from the Depression through Obamacare. . . . beautifully written [and] compelling.” —Jonathan Oberlander, author of The Political Life of Medicare Named by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title In Health Care for Some, Beatrix Hoffman offers an engaging, in-depth look at America’s long tradition of unequal access to health care. She argues that two main features have characterized the US health system: a refusal to adopt a right to care and a particularly American approach to the rationing of care. Health Care for Some shows that the haphazard way the US system allocates medical services—using income, race, region, insurance coverage, and many other factors—is a disorganized, illogical, and powerful form of rationing. And unlike rationing in most countries, which is intended to keep costs down, rationing in the United States has actually led to increased costs, resulting in the most expensive health care system in the world. While most histories of US health care emphasize failed policy reforms, Health Care for Some looks at the system from the ground up in order to examine how rationing is experienced by ordinary Americans and how experiences of rationing have led to claims for a right to health care. By taking this approach, Hoffman puts a much-needed human face on a topic that is too often dominated by talking heads. “A well-researched, readable primer on the development of the complex, fragmented US medical system.” —Times Higher Education




The U.S. Healthcare System


Book Description

Provides a diverse, multi-faceted approach to health care evaluation and management The U.S. Health Care System: Origins, Organization and Opportunities provides a comprehensive introduction and resource for understanding healthcare management in the United States. It brings together the many “moving parts” of this large and varied system to provide both a bird’s-eye view as well as relevant details of the complex mechanisms at work. By focusing on stakeholders and their interests, this book analyzes the value propositions of the buyers and sellers of healthcare products and services along with the interests of patients. The book begins with a presentation of frameworks for understanding the structure of the healthcare system and its dynamic stakeholder inter-relationships. The chapters that follow each begin with their social and historical origins, so the reader can fully appreciate how that area evolved. The next sections on each topic describe the current environment and opportunities for improvement. Throughout, the learning objectives focus on three areas: frameworks for understanding issues, essential factual knowledge, and resources to keep the reader keep up to date. Healthcare is a rapidly evolving field, due to the regulatory and business environments as well as the advance of science. To keep the content current, online updates are provided at: www.HealthcareInsights.MD. This website also offers a weekday blog of important/interesting news and teaching notes/class discussion suggestions for instructors who use the book as a text. The U.S. Health Care System: Origins, Organization and Opportunities is an ideal textbook for healthcare courses in MBA, MPH, MHA, and public policy/administration programs. In piloting the content, over the past several years the author has successfully used drafts of chapters in his Healthcare Systems course for MBA and MPH students at Northwestern University. The book is also useful for novice or seasoned suppliers, payers and providers who work across the healthcare field and want a wider or deeper understanding of the entire system.