Download or read book The Truth About Health Care written by David Mechanic and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-04 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States spends greatly more per person on health care than any other country but the evidence shows that care is often poor and inappropriate. Despite expenditures of 1.7 trillion dollars in 2003, and growing substantially each year, services remain fragmented and poorly coordinated, and more than 46 million people are uninsured. Why can't America, with its vast array of resources, sophisticated technologies, superior medical research and educational institutions, and talented health care professionals, produce higher quality care and better outcomes? In The Truth about Health Care, David Mechanic explains how health care in America has evolved in ways that favor a myriad of economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. While money has always had a place in medical care, "big money" and the quest for profits has become dominant, making meaningful reforms difficult to achieve. Mechanic acknowledges that railing against these influences, which are here to stay, can achieve only so much. Instead, he asks whether it is possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well functioning system that better serves the entire population. Bringing decades of experience as an active health policy participant, researcher, teacher, and consultant to the public and private sectors, Mechanic examines the strengths and weaknesses of our system and how it has evolved. He pays special attention to areas often neglected in policy discussions, such as the loss of public trust in medicine, the tragic state of long-term care, and the relationship of mental health to health care. For anyone who has been frustrated by uncoordinated health networks, insurance denials, and other obstacles to obtaining appropriate care, this book will provide a refreshing and frank look at the system's current and future dilemmas. Mechanic's thoughtful roadmap describes how health plans, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and consumer groups can work together to improve access, quality, fairness, and health outcomes in America. About the Author:

Download or read book The Truth about Big Medicine written by Cheryl L. Brown and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title drills deeply into the broken American health care industry--demonstrating how the medical industry's self-serving interests have run afoul of safe care. Written by passionate experts in multiple relevant fields, this book shows readers how the system works, why it works this way, how it harms and often kills people and how we can fix it.

Download or read book Tell Me the Truth Doctor written by Richard Besser and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hey, Doc--Got a Minute?" No matter where Dr. Richard Besser goes, a day doesn't go by without someone stopping him to ask that question. Often, that person is one of the millions who have come to rely on the vital information he shares on Good Morning America, World News with Diane Sawyer, and Nightline. Now, in response to thousands of inquiries from viewers, Dr. Besser has written his first book -- a comprehensive health guide that will both inform and surprise as he deciphers fact from fiction for nearly seventy confusing medical questions, including: "Should I take a daily aspirin to prevent a heart attack, stroke, or cancer?" "If my doctors order a lot of tests, does that mean they're more thorough?" "Do I need thirty minutes of exercise a day to stay healthy?" Recognizing the astonishing amount of misinformation that many important health decisions are based upon, Dr. Besser's commitment to delivering the truth is critical. He isn't afraid to challenge the status quo -- or the interests within the health care industry -- to provide the knowledge you need to take control of your health. Eager to help you make the choices that are right for YOU, he organizes his easy-to-understand answers into six lifestyle categories, including diet and nutrition; exercise and fitness; vitamins, supplements, and medicines; beating illness and injury; and navigating the perplexing world of health care, as well as a chapter dedicated to the questions you wished you asked before your doctor walks out the door. Throughout the book, Dr. Besser smashes myths while translating invaluable information into problem-solving advice you can use, including a "Dr. B's Bottom Line" at the end of each topic. As accessible as it is empowering, Dr. Besser's Tell Me the Truth, Doctor is a necessary addition to every home, office, and dorm room. "Besser . . . ably analyzes popular myths (the "Freshman Fifteen"), considers pros and cons (HRT and statins), and mostly takes unequivocal stands on the issues. . . . Quite often, his comments and suggestions surprise . . . Particularly helpful are his guidelines for avoiding the harmful effects of health care and hospitalization." -- Publishers Weekly Richard Besser, MD, ABC News' Chief Health and Medical Editor, provides medical analysis and commentary for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including World News with Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America, and Nightline, as well as many other news/entertainment programs. Since joining ABC News in 2009, Dr. Besser has been at the forefront of news coverage for every major medical story, including the earthquake in Haiti and the Japanese radiation release. He was the leading correspondent on ABC's global health series, Be the Change, Save a Life, and received a 2011 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for his World News story on cord blood banking. Besser came to ABC News from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he worked for thirteen years, including as acting director from January to June 2009, during which time he led the CDC's response to the H1N1 influenza outbreak. He has taught and trained doctors at the University of California, San Diego and is a visiting fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Most important, for more than twenty-five years he has practiced medicine, giving his patients and their families straightforward, commonsense advice.

Download or read book The Truth About Big Medicine written by Cheryl L. Brown and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans believe that their healthcare is second to none. Most patients, therefore, fail to appreciate the flaws and dangers present while receiving medical care. In fact, the American health care industry is one of the great tragedies of this country, which is now being brought to its knees by the medical industry run amuck. The Truth About Big Medicine: Righting the Wrongs for Better Health Care divulges secrets of the industry, which keep it focused on its own economic needs to the detriment of public health. The cost of American health care per person far exceeds other developed countries, yet it delivers life expectancies and infant mortalities that are shamefully ranked low among developed nations. Special interest groups and weak legislation created a “tapeworm” that continues to devour the American economy and shorten the lives of hundreds of thousands each year. Using true stories throughout, the authors illustrate that it is time for the public, students, educators, and legislators to clearly recognize medical deception and secrecy and to consider clear solutions on how they can achieve a safer health care system. A rich variety of authors with experience in revealing unsafe medical practices bring recommendations for changing health care delivery by taking an aspect of the health care system, identifying its shortcomings, and proposing ways to reduce harm plus correct the injustices. Included are discussions of imaging, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, hospital practices and procedures, and medical malpractice and negligence, among other topics. No consumer of health care should ignore the dangers; this book helps reveal them and suggests useful remedies. The authors maintain a website at http://truthaboutbigmedicine.com/

Download or read book An American Sickness written by Elisabeth Rosenthal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

Download or read book The Truth About Getting Sick in America written by Tim Johnson and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today’s world, there are many hot-button topics that generate equal parts debate and confusion. At the top of that list is healthcare. For most Americans, finding out “the truth” about current problems or possible fixes is virtually impossible amidst all the emotionally charged rhetoric. Dr. Tim Johnson has been reporting on health matters for ABC since the mid-seventies, but in recent years he has spent an increasing amount of time studying our system of healthcare—or lack thereof. Many Americans fall between the cracks and do not receive any care—or receive care that is either inferior or too costly or both. Over the years, he has learned some important lessons, and in The Truth About Getting Sick in America, he shares those lessons and looks to the future of American healthcare.

Download or read book For Profit Enterprise in Health Care written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1986-01-01 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This book is] the most authoritative assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of recent trends toward the commercialization of health care," says Robert Pear of The New York Times. This major study by the Institute of Medicine examines virtually all aspects of for-profit health care in the United States, including the quality and availability of health care, the cost of medical care, access to financial capital, implications for education and research, and the fiduciary role of the physician. In addition to the report, the book contains 15 papers by experts in the field of for-profit health care covering a broad range of topicsâ€"from trends in the growth of major investor-owned hospital companies to the ethical issues in for-profit health care. "The report makes a lasting contribution to the health policy literature." â€"Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Download or read book Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care written by Lynn B. Rogut and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005-04-08 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Health care delivery in the United States is an enormously complex enterprise, and its $1.6 trillion annual expenditures involve a host of competing interests. While arguably the nation offers among the most technologically advanced medical care in the world, the American system consistently under performs relative to its resources. Gaps in financing and service delivery pose major barriers to improving health, reducing disparities, achieving universal insurance coverage, enhancing quality, controlling costs, and meeting the needs of patients and families. Bringing together twenty-five of the nation’s leading experts in health care policy and public health, this book provides a much-needed perspective on how our health care system evolved, why we face the challenges that we do, and why reform is so difficult to achieve. The essays tackle tough issues including: socioeconomic disadvantage, tobacco, obesity, gun violence, insurance gaps, the rationing of services, the power of special interests, medical errors, and the nursing shortage. Linking the nation’s health problems to larger political, cultural, and philosophical contexts, Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care offers a compelling look at where we stand and where we need to be headed.

Download or read book The Truth About Obamacare written by Sally Pipes and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes what the new health care bill will mean for average consumers, discussing how it will make health care more expensive, limit options, worsen the standards of medical care, and damage the American economy.

Download or read book Health Care Half Truths written by Arthur Garson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2008-08 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you tired of hearing that the American health care 'system' is broken? Well, it is. You can't understand your bill--or pay it; you wait an hour before seeing the doctor for ten minutes; and that was your child who was just laid off, and whose family has no health insurance. Health Care Half-Truths shows the ways in which American health care is tarnished and ways in which it shines, explaining that if we are going to make our health care system work for us we must begin with a common set of information. Unfortunately, our current information comes from sound bites that on their surface seem perfectly reasonable, but on closer examination are wrong. Health Care Half-Truths untangles the misinformation, misperceptions, and confusion that have confounded the American public and our elected officials. Dr. Arthur Garson identifies twenty myths about the U.S. health care system and uses his extensive knowledge and keen insights to blow them apart.

Download or read book The Myths of Modern Medicine written by John Leifer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American health care system is terminally ill. It is astonishingly expensive, remarkably variable in quality, and incapable of stemming the rising tide of chronic illness in our population. Yet, the majority of Americans believe it is the best system in the world and cling to the belief that, far from ailing, it delivers care superior to those of countries across the globe. The system has obliged us by providing an elaborate set of myths and misconceptions about American health care that significantly shape our beliefs. These myths keep us blissfully ignorant about the true quality, safety, and value of the care we receive. This ignorance has a price: it leads us to draw erroneous conclusions about our conditions, fail to properly evaluate potential treatment options, and rarely question our providers’ competency. The Myths of Modern Medicine looks at the real issues contributing to the dysfunction of our healthcare system and how these issues affect the care we receive. The book, based upon John Leifer’s 30 years of immersion in the healthcare industry, challenges some of our most commonly held misperceptions about this vitally important industry. Leifer strips away the elaborately constructed myths that conceal the ugly underbelly of healthcare and lays bare the truth about an industry that serves special interest groups far better than it serves its patients. A survival guide for anyone entering the healthcare system, this timely work helps consumers better research provider competency; ask the right questions to evaluate potential treatment options; and communicate the information that will help yield the right treatment decisions. Several studies have shown patients today have only about a 50 percent chance of getting the generally accepted best treatment for their conditions. This book helps consumers increase these odds with step-by-step directions on how to interact more productively with their doctors and become true partners in making what may be the most crucial decisions of their lives.

Download or read book Which Country Has the World s Best Health Care written by Ezekiel J. Emanuel and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The preeminent doctor and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel is repeatedly asked one question: Which country has the best healthcare? He set off to find an answer. The US spends more than any other nation, nearly $4 trillion, on healthcare. Yet, for all that expense, the US is not ranked #1 -- not even close. In Which Country Has the World's Best Healthcare? Ezekiel Emanuel profiles eleven of the world's healthcare systems in pursuit of the best or at least where excellence can be found. Using a unique comparative structure, the book allows healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers alike to know which systems perform well, and why, and which face endemic problems. From Taiwan to Germany, Australia to Switzerland, the most inventive healthcare providers tackle a global set of challenges -- in pursuit of the best healthcare in the world.

Download or read book The Truth About Obamacare written by Sally C. Pipes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-07-13 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her new book, The Truth About Obamacare, Sally C. Pipes—president of the Pacific Research Institute and an acknowledged expert on health care reform—reveals what Democrats in Congress and President Obama don't want you to know: Obamacare is even worse than most critics suspect. Debunking the myths that the current administration has touted, Pipes shows exactly what the new health care law will mean for you, your family, your doctor, and your wallet. She also reveals how, contrary to its promises, Obamacare will make health care more expensive, limit your options, lead to deteriorating medical care, and weaken America’s already frail economy.

Download or read book What Doctors Don t Know written by Ron Garner and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BREAKING FREEWhat if everything you have been told about disease is not true?This book can change your life because it shatters what we have been taught about health and disease for generations.Learn why: Understanding health is simple Disease has only one basic cause The autoimmune theory is false Your kidneys and adrenal glands must be strong You are the only one who can make yourself healthyRead this book and take back your power to be healthy!Author Ron Garner, BEd, MSc, writes from personal experience how and why these health principles work. He collaborated with Dr. Robert Morse, who discovered them, to help more people know the truth about health and disease.Robert Morse, ND, departed from conventional medical thinking to discover how the human body really works to generate health. He has been helping people around the world for almost fifty years to reverse serious health problems and live vibrant lives.

Download or read book Health Care Reform written by Jonathan Gruber and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-12-20 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A graphic explanation of the PPACA act"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Crossing the Global Quality Chasm written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2019-01-27 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2015, building on the advances of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that include an explicit commitment to achieve universal health coverage by 2030. However, enormous gaps remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, and progress has been both incomplete and unevenly distributed. In order to meet this goal, a deliberate and comprehensive effort is needed to improve the quality of health care services globally. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm: Improving Health Care Worldwide focuses on one particular shortfall in health care affecting global populations: defects in the quality of care. This study reviews the available evidence on the quality of care worldwide and makes recommendations to improve health care quality globally while expanding access to preventive and therapeutic services, with a focus in low-resource areas. Crossing the Global Quality Chasm emphasizes the organization and delivery of safe and effective care at the patient/provider interface. This study explores issues of access to services and commodities, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity. Focusing on front line service delivery that can directly impact health outcomes for individuals and populations, this book will be an essential guide for key stakeholders, governments, donors, health systems, and others involved in health care.

Download or read book Evidence Based Medicine and the Changing Nature of Health Care written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2008-09-06 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the work of the Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the 2007 IOM Annual Meeting assessed some of the rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discussed the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Improving the evidence-base for medicine holds great potential to increase the quality and efficiency of medical care. The Annual Meeting, held on October 8, 2007, brought together many of the nation's leading authorities on various aspects of the issues - both challenges and opportunities - to present their perspectives and engage in discussion with the IOM membership.