The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

Comments

1. Back Shaft says:

   November 3, 2009 at 11:45 am

   If you’re open-minded enough to accept only Liberal/Progressive barf than this is the book for you! Don’t think, just “one click” order. It will raise your self-esteem, and as if that’s not enough, you might even enjoy assumptive proof that you are intellectually superior to anyone that has thoughts differing from your hippie college professors. Feel good, because it says it is “fairer” on the cover. Almost as good as celebrating Kwanzaa or taking a government paid (FREE) Prozac.
   Rating: 1 / 5
2. Cindy R. Joseph says:

   November 3, 2009 at 11:47 am

   I lived overseas in NZ for a year and worked as a senior MD in their system.Useful meds were denied, specialists were scarce, toilets in surgery were cleaned by patient families as they were too filthy—in short, it sucked. My wife, Cindy, had a condition that required back surgery (done well at the Mayo Clinic upon return in 2 months)—wait time 2 years. It wasn’t done—she lived in excrutiating pain. Private insurers abroad DO NOT cover pre-existing conditions ever.

   Be careful what you ask for. Universal health insurance does not equal universal health care. ALL of the other countries in the world are parasites off of the research in the American system. We do more than the rest of the world put together, and it shows in the Nobels.
   Rating: 1 / 5
3. Ed Schultz says:

   November 3, 2009 at 1:05 pm

   If you are looking for information on what types of health care systems are available in other countries and how they work, this is an excellent read. However, if you are looking for an unbiased view as to a potential solution to America’s problem, this book is a waste of time.

   The author spends a lot of time dissing the insurance companies. For example, he states that adminstrative costs add up to 20% of the cost of health care when in fact it is closer to 7%. Granted that is way higher than other countries, but not as skewed as he would lead you to believe.

   He also states in the last chapter(s) that America ranks toward the middle (or end) when compared to health care. Yet, why is it that whenever anyone has a problem they always want to come to our hospitals? He glows continuously about how good other systems are but glosses over the negatives. For example, there is only a handful of references in the book about the long wait times in Canada (for his shoulded injury he mentions 18 months!), and yet he spends pages and pages discussing how great the system is. In Great Britain, there is one mention that the only solution to his shoulder problem is to “deal with it”. Is this a good system? From reading his book you would assume we should all rush out and implement their system.

   But the biggest glaring omission is that he is very careful to never mention the word “rationing”. He does say that governments face “choices”, and must make “decisions” as to what care is available. Yet one thing that ALL of these systems have in common is that they use rationing. Is this a good solution? Is this something Americans would tolerate? The answer should be yes and the author makes a brief case for the quality of life. What he fails to mention is that the number one major cost to health care is the super human effort to keep people alive in the last 5 years of their life. Throw this statistic into the book and emphasize that the only way to have an affordable health care system in America is to ration care where it needs to be rationed and this would have been an excellent book.

   However, since he is so skewed and biased toward making the case that we MUST have a system in America and that it is reprehensible that we don’t, I can’t give it many stars.
   Rating: 1 / 5
4. R. Sweeney says:

   November 3, 2009 at 1:08 pm

   Ok — this is a newly released book and just had some publicity on “All Things Considered” on NPR. But…

   Book price: $14.27
   
   Kindle price: $13.70
   
   Kindle savings: $0.57

   What a rip.

   Exactly what is it that Kindle’s electronic version costs the publisher and Amazon? I won’t be buying either version, unless the Kindle version comes down in price.

   Oh, and by the way, Barnes & Noble eReader version is $9.99. Kindle premium is 37%.
   Rating: 4 / 5
5. Chuck Crane says:

   November 3, 2009 at 1:46 pm

   While I agree with Reid that our healthcare system needs reform, I am very sorry I wasted a few dollars downloading this piece of tripe to my Kindle. I expected a thoughtful fact-based analysis but ended up with an airheaded homily.

   VERBOSE. This book contains about 20 pages of useful information fluffed up with stupid anecdotes and innumerate arguments into an idiotic little book. I do not like having my time wasted, and if you value your time, you will avoid this stinkbomb.

   INNUMERATE. According to Wikipedia Reid studied classics, and it really shows — obviously he didn’t study mathematics, statistics, economics, or any of the disciplines that I would expect an author of a book on this subject to understand. As a result, Reid ends up:

   1. Using rankings (e.g. “U.S. ranks fifth in …”) without understanding: (a) whether the difference is notable or trivial — in other words, if #1 scores 100, and #5 scores 99.99, being #1 is probably not much different from being #5, and (b) whether the difference is the result of what Reid seems to think it is, or to other factors.
   
   2. Comparing frequencies without allowing for variations in definition and measurement. I bet he really likes those little charts on the front page of USA Today.
   
   3. Comparing homogeneous countries with well-educated and orderly populations and an emphasis on personal responsibility for one’s health to a heterogeneous country (like the U.S.) with huge variations in education, an abundance of self-destructive behaviors (obesity for example), and a victim mentality that denies personal responsibility for anything, especially among some minorities.

   FACTUALLY INACCURATE
   
   For example, Reid states that the “total malpractice bill, including insurance premiums, big-dollar verdicts, and defensive medicine, adds only 1 percent to our total healthcare costs.” He didn’t do much research on this — the actual number is about 10%, with the major contributor being defensive medicine. The 1% figure is close for the direct costs of malpractice, but it is the indirect costs (defensive medicine) that are the major ones. Fear of liability also ensures that nobody in his right mind would do volunteer work in healthcare, but this fact seems to escape Reid entirely, even though he repeatedly remarks the number of volunteers he encountered in the health care systems of other countries. What a dufus.
   Rating: 1 / 5