Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System Author: Ezekiel Emanuel | Language: English | ISBN:
B00G1SD7BE | Format: PDF
Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System 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.
- File Size: 9518 KB
- Print Length: 400 pages
- Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1 edition (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00G1SD7BE
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,597 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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American health care leads the world in costs - 18% of GDP (while excluding about 15% from insurance coverage), vs. 4% for Singapore (excluding no-one) at the low-end. It also infects 5% of hospitalized patients - of which nearly 100,000 die, and kills another estimated 44,000 - 98,000 from other hospital errors. Surely this complicated mess deserves rethinking. Unfortunately, getting from the mess we have now to something akin to the high-quality, much-lower cost care in Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan has proven beyond the capability of America's legislative leaders. Decades of failed prior attempts, followed by compromise after compromise was required to even get the limited improvements afforded by the ACA when it was enacted in 2010.
Dr. Emanuel clearly likes the ACA - understandable given his role in its development. However, he minimizes trying to sell the ACA, doesn't mince words excoriating the initial ACA rollout efforts, and focuses on explaining our current complicated, dysfunctional system. I'm very hopeful that one of ACA's mandates (electronic medical records) will prove far more valuable than imagined, helping to identify important interactions, improve treatment protocols, and save lives. Improving access to care will also save lives. Similarly, encouraging the growth of accountable care organizations with bundled payments should also save lives and reduce costs by incentivizing quality improvement and removing incentives to over-treat. Finally, taxing 'Cadillac' plans will also hopefully make a dent in cost control.
An excellent and objective overview of complicated subjects
By Loyd E. Eskildson
HALL OF FAME
Well written, easy to read, full of facts and trends and interesting history, too. Puts this critical subject into perspective. Data is accurate as of Dec. 1, 2013. Author calls the book "a primer on the American health care system".
Well organized into 3 sections: how did we get here; current health care reform and what the Affordable Care Act means to you; and likely future trends. Trends like the emergence of digital medicine, future of insurance companies, control of health care inflation, and care for the chronically and mentally ill. Each chapter is described in the Table of Contents, so you can skip to the subjects that intrigue you the most.
A valuable read for me because the book avoids the highly emotional political rhetoric that assails us from all directions these days. I was able to focus on today's reality and learn more about my options.
By Paula Gibble
Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System Preview
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