Critical Condition : How Health Care in America Became Big Business--and Bad Medicine

Rating:
Summary: Better late than never!
Review: 'Surviving a Successful Heart Attack' left the author and me with many unanswered questions - 'Critical Condition' gives some valid answers and valuable insight on the real reason that we are prescribed many of the medicines that we take today. I have eliminated my coffee habit with the help of a wonderful coffee substitute made from soya beans called "Soyffee", I'm feeling so much better. My doctor recommended it to help lower my cholesterol and promote strong bones. It's available online at www.S o y c o f f e e.com to find it. This book contains a bounty of research and facts from several sources that show the systematic failure of our 'for profit' healthcare system and how big companies have spent 100's of millions to hide the facts from us.

Rating:
Summary: Good analysis of the history of market-based healthcare
Review: For those people who vaguely remember when healthcare & insurance was generally a manageable aspect of our lives (as opposed to being a source of stress & potential financial ruin), this book will explain very well how healthcare in US arrived at the point where it is today. For younger readers, this book will remind them that once upon a time, there was a country where insurance was fairly comprehensive & affordable, hospitals were oriented towards community rather than being part of a bottom-line-obsessed corporation, and pharmaceutical commercials were not littering the airwaves.

The authors do an excellent job of showing that the shift, on every level of healthcare, to a market-based economic model has achieved exactly the opposite of what the proponents of the free market claimed would happen. Instead of streamlining healthcare & making it as a whole more efficient and affordable, the shift to the free market has actually created a massive bureaucracy (which conservatives claim to loath) and a far less efficient healthcare system. Certainly it is not any more affordable. Anyone who is familiar with medical collections & with the stunning increase in bankruptcies over the last few years can attest to this. The authors underscore their arguments with a litany of horror stories of patients dying or suffering hugely at the hands of a hopelessly tangled system which emphasizes the bottom line over the welfare of the patient.

All of this is well and good, and mighty depressing. However, only a minimal amount of time is devoted to what might be done about it. The authors' suggestion --- the adoption of a single-payor system --- is fine as far as it goes, but they offer only a cursory examination of the benefits of such a system and do not delve into any of the criticisms of the same. Neither do they discuss other proposals such as tort reform, which is the Bush administration's answer seemingly to every healthcare crisis. In interviews, the authors have observed that capping jury awards would only make a tiny dent in the overall costs of insurance, and certainly tort reform has had mixed results at best, depending on which of the states that have passed tort reform legislation one examines. Yet the authors barely touch on it their text. At the very end of their book, the authors mention the fact that Big Business (aside from the healthcare industry) certainly has good reason to want a single-payor system, since healthcare costs cut deeply into THEIR profits, thus setting up a contest of sorts between two powerful for-profit entities. It is probably the fact that the combined power of multiple US industries outweighs the power of the insurance & healthcare industries that will ultimately force genuine changes in how this country manages healthcare, but the authors for whatever reason prefer not to explore this particular topic. This is unfortunate.

Overall, this book provides some good detail on issues we all need to know more about, but if you are looking for detailed solutions, you will need to look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Important but Unsatisfying
Review: I agree with the authors on the big picture: the state of health care in the U.S. is a scandal that should lead the news most nights. But the authors are able to describe only the tip of this iceberg, the part most exposed to the public. By this I mean that most of the book is a series of incidents along the lines of "Mr. X tried to get procedure Y but was denied for crappy reason Z." Or "HealthShysters, Inc. went under and left a million people without medical care."

I was hoping for an analysis which would examine more closely the economic and politcal roots of the current predicament. The subtitle of the book, after all, is "How Health Car in America Became Big Business and Bad Medicine"-- but I felt that precisely "how" is too often elided.

On the other hand, the current one is an easy read and a reasonable introduction to an important issue.

Rating:
Summary: There is plenty wrong --- but
Review: I work in healthcare. I know there are many wrongs. The key to correcting them, however, is not factless raving. There is very little factual data, and flat out mis-statements and mis-leading galore. This is a feel-good book for those who have already come to pre-concieved conclusions about how evil our system is--and I agree that there are numerous wrongs--but books like this, that don;t bother to learn about all sides of an issue and prints half-truths?? this harms more than helps

Rating:
Summary: Riviting Expose Of the State Of American Health Care
Review: Investigative reporters and the only journalists in history to be awarded two Pulitzer Prizes and two National Magazine Awards, Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele have presented a riveting exposé of the critical state of the health system in the United States with their book Critical Condition: How Health Care In America Became Big Business-And Bad Medicine.

Beginning with the assertion that American health care has been transposed from one of compassion to a system motivated by profit- the authors present a distressing analysis as to what went wrong. Where forty-four million citizens do not have health insurance, and tens of millions more are underinsured. And yet there seems to be this enduring myth propagated by many that the USA has a "world- class health system."

As mentioned by the authors, the USA spends more on health care than any other nation, when you compare it to Germany, France, Japan, Italy, and Canada. However, in these countries citizens do not think twice about seeking care if they are ill. They do not worry who will foot the bills.
In the USA, it has become a lottery. If you are fortunate to be employed by a large company providing generous health benefits, you win. On the other hand, if you are self-employed or work for a small enterprise providing little or no coverage, you lose. You may even go bankrupt and lose your home in order to pay your medical bills.

Relying on interviews, studies from various organizations as the World Health Organization, the US department of Health and Human Services, legal suits, brokerage reports, congressional hearings, newspaper articles, magazine stories, SEC filings, professional journals, and a resevoir of many other sources (all of which are mentioned in the Notes section at the back of the book), the authors deliver legitimate arguments illustrating how an assortment of factors have crawled into the system with calamitous effects.

Broken down into six chapters, Barlett and Steele judiciously examine some of these elements as: rampant overcharging of patients who do not have insurance, dissuading people from purchasing drugs from Canada with false information concerning the Canadian pharmaceutical industry, caving into the demands of special interest groups, the non-existence of independent monitoring of diagnostic test results and hospital mistakes, permitting politicians and business people to assume key roles to the detriment of the welfare of the citizens, a culture of cronyism giving rise to blatant fraud in many instances, doctors having to deal with conditions apt to be found in undeveloped countries, peopled shuffled around by individuals who do not have the foggiest notion as to how to deal with them.

In addition, we are informed of how private enterprises connected with Wall Street financiers and Madison Avenue advertising firms have been permitted to join in as if health care was analogous to the selling of cars or MacDonald's franchises. As the authors rightfully ask: "Is this what health care in America has become?"

Although the authors portray a certain amount of cynicism, there is a glimmer of hope, as evidenced by the concluding chapter, wherein suggestions are offered as to how to revamp the ailing system.
However, the question lingers on. Will Americans reconsider their values, priorities, budgets and options and elect people, who will first and foremost take care of its citizens when it comes to health care? Something most civilized nations do.

Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures

Rating:
Summary: Terminal condition?
Review: It's good that someone can protest the current health care hell, since the forty-five million with no voice or medical insurance are never heard. This depiction of the deteriorating scenario of free-market capitalism applied to the distribution of medical services is pretty shocking, something we already know or sense but put from our minds--the plight of those suffering maximu neglect as they finally reach the emergency, and many other horrors in the lottery of this immense swindle worthy of a banana republic. Almost pitiful is the picture of the way those with the least resources are often stuck with massive hospital bills, far greater than the norm for providers. That's unbelievable, as if the way the regime has made it seem normal. Now what do we do about it?

Rating:
Summary: Blockbuster!
Review: Kudos to authors Barlett and Steele. "Critical Condition" should be MANDATORY reading for everyone from 13 to 103 -- at LEAST!


Rating:
Summary: Too many personal anecdotes
Review: Lots of good points in this book, but each is illustrated with too many personal anecdotes of people who were victims in different ways. I get the point without all the hard luck stories going on for page after page.

This book is an important read, but could have been a lot shorter.

Rating:
Summary: Medical Bills Are An Uncontrollable Expense
Review: Over 40,000,000 Americans have no health insurance and many more millions are underinsured. Health Care in America has become big business with a primary focus of making a big profit. The free market is great for America, but is does not work for health care. The reason the free market does not work for health care is that the health care consumer in many cases is not making a real choice. The consumer that is rushed to the hospital has little or no free market choice. In any critical situation the person needing health care does not have free choice when facing life or death or any other critical situation.

There is a big difference between health care and other goods and services where a consumer has a real choice. The market system does not work for health care. Our system is not about health care, but it is about the insurance reimbursement system. The USA health care system is a huge bureaucracy where billions of dollars are spent on the huge bureaucracy that has nothing to do with basic preventative and life-savings care.

The leading cause of death in the USA is heart disease and has been so for decades. The second leading cause is cancer and has been so for decades. The third leading cause of death in the USA is new. It is shocking to now learn from this book that the third leading cause of death is now medical mistakes including drug interactions and bad drugs.

For those that are interested there is an author event for this book available on C-Span2 Book TV.

Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for every American
Review: This book should be required reading for every American.
The book only came out in Fall '04.
How could it be out of print already?
I find this very curious and disturbing.

I urge everyone to get this book where ever they can and read it!
You will then understand, what Wall Street is doing to America.