Waubonsee Community College

An American sickness, how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back, Elisabeth Rosenthal

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 349-392) and index

index present

non fiction

An American sickness

967133973

Elisabeth Rosenthal

how healthcare became big business and how you can take it back

"An award-winning New York Times reporter Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal reveals the dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional American healthcare system, and tells us exactly what we can do to solve its myriad of problems. It is well documented that our healthcare system has grave problems, but how, in only a matter of decades, did things get this bad? Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms; she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. Rosenthal spells out in clear and practical terms 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, explaining step by step the workings of a profession sorely lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate a byzantine system and also to demand far-reaching reform. Breaking down the monolithic business into its individual industries--the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, drug manufacturers--that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal tells the story of the history of American medicine as never before. The situation is far worse than we think, and it has become like that much more recently than we realize. Hospitals, 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. Americans are dying from routine medical conditions when affordable and straightforward solutions exist. Dr. Rosenthal explains for the first time how various social and financial incentives have encouraged a disastrous and immoral system to spring uporganicallyin a shockingly short span of time. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. An American Sicknessis the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart"--, Provided by publisher

Complaint: Unaffordable healthcare -- The age of insurance -- The age of hospitals -- The age of physicians -- The age of pharmaceuticals -- The age of medical devices -- The age of testing and ancillary services -- The age of contractors: Billing, coding, collections, and new medical businesses -- The age of research and good works for profit: The perversion of a noble enterprise -- The age of conglomerates -- The age of healthcare as pure business -- The age of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- The high price of patient complacency -- Doctors' bills -- Hospital bills -- Insurance costs -- Drug and medical device costs -- Bills for tests and ancillary services -- Better healthcare in a digital age -- Appendix A: Pricing/shopping tools -- Appendix B: Tools for vetting hospitals -- Appendix C: Glossary for medical bills and explanations of benefits -- Appendix D: Tools to help you figure out whether a test or a procedure is really necessary -- Appendix E: Templates for protest letters