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Author: Visit Amazon's Jonathan Cohn Page
ISBN : 0060580461
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From Publishers Weekly
In this addition to the growing list of exposés of the toll our patchwork, profit-based health-care system takes on Americans, Cohn makes a plea for a universal coverage with a single-payer system regulated by the government. Drawing on research and riveting anecdotes, Cohn, a senior editor at the
New Republic, describes how private insurers decide who and what they will—and will not—cover. He also examines how rising health-care costs lead corporations to seek ways to deny coverage to employees, such as hiring full-time workers as temps or independent contractors without health insurance. In tale after tale, Cohn documents the sometimes catastrophic results. they couldn't. Cohn points out that managed care initially had an altruistic goal of making health-care affordable for all. But by 1997, two-thirds of HMOs were controlled by for-profit companies concerned with making money rather than preventing and easing sickness. The author convincingly argues that Medicare and universal health care in such countries as France, though not perfect, are far superior to the system most Americans face. Much of this is well-trod territory, but Cohn is eloquent, and he's good at using case studies to dramatize and explain complex issues.
(Apr. 10)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Overcrowded emergency rooms force ambulances to drive patients to more distant hospitals; the uninsured crowd emergency rooms for nonemergency health care, adding to the problem as hospitals and patients struggle to balance supply and demand, and profitability.
New Republic reporter Cohn offers personal stories of families--and the nation--suffering health-care crises. A man who has lost his health insurance watches his wife die of cancer that might have been detected earlier if he'd had better coverage, a Texas woman fights with her insurer to get her disabled baby therapy that could help him learn to walk. Cohn presents case after case of Americans bereft of adequate health care coverage after losing their jobs, or seeing their employers cut back on coverage, or insurers fight to provide the minimum of coverage. Cohn uses each case study to provide a historical and modern perspective on insurance and health care delivery, and the factors that have led to the current crisis.
Vanessa BushCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation Free Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price
- Paperback: 316 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 6, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060580461
- ISBN-13: 978-0060580469
- Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Free Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price
Why this book is subtitled "The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis - And the People Who Pay the Price" is beyond me. Everyone has a story about the failure of our health care system or "non-system" and everyone is paying the price. Not only is it becoming more obvious by the day, almost every presidential contender is promising some kind of reform.
Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic has given us a number of revealing and disturbing case studies, each indicating system failure; and with each study he gives us some historical background as to how certain institutions - Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, employer-based health insurance, etc. - came to be. The historical background is good because is shows that there was no single policy or grand design behind our current mess; it is more a product of haphazard decisions made over a long period of time.
Let's look at some facts. America spends about $7,000 per capita on health care annually, about twice as much as the country in second place. Yet we are ranked 37th in health system performance, according to WHO. There is indisputably something very wrong.
Our system can best be described as a private, employer-based health insurance system. It started during World War II with the wartime freeze on wages. Companies started offering health insurance to attract and keep employees. And the rest, as they say, is history. Today we have Daimler basically giving away Chrysler because they have about $18 billion worth of health care liabilities. Every single worker is paying for about three retirees - and their families. Now, the only way Chrysler can keep employees is if they drastically reduce their health benefits.
So what's the author's solution?
The US health care system is not in good shape and this book suggests some of the reasons. 40% of US citizens with problems do not get care due to cost issues. Patient satisfaction is lower in the US than in Canada, the UK and many other countries with some form a national plan. The US spends more than any other country with worse overall results and lower rates of coverage in the population than any other industrial country. We spend less on preventive care as a percentage of expenditures than any industrial nation. In 2004, 35% of Americans believe that the US health care system needed fundamental rebuilding.
I could go on, but the clear FACT is that US health care is in bad shape and getting worse quickly for many, many Americans. What is the solution? A single payer system is a good start. Only those ideologically paranoid about government (anyone who still thinks that the current Administration in DC is doing a good job, that global warming is a hoax, and that abstinence only education works is probably in that camp) big pharmacy, big insurance, and affluent folks with good jobs and good insurance disagree. Creating competition on the basis of value (like reduced illness) rather than cost and risk shifting would be a second place to go.
Lots of countries have great single payer, national plans that do well. I have lived in some of these places (like Germany) and they are great. Most allow for supplemental and/or private plans at an extra cost (like Japan) but they provide a good base of care for all. Speaking of Germany, they pay about 35% of what we pay for drugs. Like I said, the current system works well... for big pharma!
Cohn's book give an excellent historical context for the problem.
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