Book Description
Using the examples of Vioxx, Celebrex, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, and anti-depressants,
Overdo$ed America shows that at the heart of the current crisis in American medicine lies the commercialization of medical knowledge itself.
Drawing on his background in statistics, epidemiology, and health policy,
John Abramson, M.D., an award-winning family doctor on the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, reveals the ways in which the drug companies have misrepresented statistical evidence, misled doctors, and compromised our health. The good news is that the best scientific evidence shows that reclaiming responsibility for your own health is often far more effective than taking the latest blockbuster drug.
You -- and your doctor -- will be stunned by this unflinching exposé of American medicine.
Customer Reviews:
Overdosed America.......2007-09-03
Abramson does a well researched job of explaining why Americans take so many pills, why many of them are not necessary, and how generics are generally as effective as brand names. It is an eyeopener concerning drug research and sales practices. Very useful in most peoples' everyday life.
Exposes the REAL Drug Pushers.......2007-08-12
The author demonstrates how the drug companies have learned how to manipulate the system that approves and recommends their product. As a result, your doctor has no clue that there is very weak scientific support behind many of the expensive drugs that they are telling you to take.
The power of this book can be demonstrated by its ability to predict future events. For example, shortly after I finished reading it, a study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine regarding the popular and expensive blood sugar controlling drug Avandia. Yes, Avandia does control blood sugar, but it also increases the risk of heart attacks by 43%. Whoops!
After reading this book I now understand why the Democrats and Republicans were climbing on top of each other to be the first to pass a drug bill that no one really wanted (except the drug companies). And I know that our health care system is overly expensive and not the best.
This is one of several excellent books that explores this fascinating topic. Cholesterol Myths and Cholesterol Conspiracy are some others that come to mind. But this book is broader in scope, and gives tremendous perspective on the health care system as a whole. It is also quite empowering, because you will learn that it's good to be skeptical of doctors, whether they are pushing expensive treatments and drugs, or simply dishing out hackneyed "lifestyle" advice about changing your diet.
The bottom line is to keep fit and flexible, and you will be doing more for yourself healthwise than all the prescription pads in the world.
Patients BEWARE your doctor might be harming you with bad drugs.......2007-08-04
Thanks Dr. Abramson for being honest enough to write your book and alert the rest of us about how the drug companies have turned our physicians into legalized drug pushers. I had a feeling that this was going on for the past 10 to 15 years when drug ads began appearing on TV, drug reps began swarming around my doctor's office and my own doctor seemed to be recommending too many drugs for my ailments. This book not only made me aware but it angered me to know that there are many patients out there who are literally suffering from the serious side effects of drugs that were recommended by doctors who allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the drug companies. SHAME ON ALL OF THEM for harming us. From now on, I will never trust my doctor completely and I encourage others to do the same. Demand that your doctor recommend natural alternatives and make sure you know ALL of the side effects of a drug before taking it.
classics .......2007-08-02
Overdosed America is a classic amongst books that expose problem of America's pharmaceutical industry. This book helps expose the terrible Vioxx and Celebrex scandal whereby side effects of these drugs were known by the pharmceutical industries and to certain extent by the FDA for years before action was taken to either take the drug off the market or blacklabeled was applied. It detailed how the structure of the pharmacuetical industry (lobbist, relation to medical schools, relation to FDA, relation to doctors) lead to disincentive to reduce cost and improve healthcare industry. This book has sprawn a whole literature related to this topic. If you want to read a book related to this field, start with this one. Other books might be written by industry specialists or reporters (this author was retired family doctor), but reading this book first helps you understand what the newer books are responding to.
When will it all stop?.......2007-06-22
This book has given me reason to believe America is on a downhill spiral. No not because of our lack of Church attendance, or prayer in our schools, or even crime in our streets. No otherwise legitimate businesses are fleecing the American taxpayer, and their partner in crime is the Congress, the Senate, and the President. This to me is a very sad state of affairs. We are allowing people to die just to keep Big Pharma fat.
Revealed here are the reasons for so many of our so called incurables. Diseases for which Medical Science has no solution. At the same time Big Pharma is using it's influences to prevent scientific advances from being achieved, or at best keeping them quiet, simply because it will hurt their bottom line.
Everyone gather around, Big Pharma, is in business to make a "PROFIT," and to keep it's share holders happy. Not I repeat, not to make you well. Again at best these drugs they produce are crutches, nearly permanent crutches. My Grandfather used insulin for nearly 35 years, up until the day of his death, and we are now finding that processed foods are the biggest reason for Diabetes. You know Factory food, instead of Farm fresh food. Even sader the drug industry has the FDA on it's side to help them to continue their ruse, over our medical schools, and our doctors, not to mention the general public. Just watch some of the commercials Big Pharma uses to convince you 'restless leg syndrom' calls for pills, and not exercise. See how Big Pharma seems to have a pill for whatever ailes you. Instead of changing your lifestyle, we have a pill for that. Got a headache, there is a pill. Indigeation, here is another pill. Oh and by the way, one of the side effects of the headache pill, is it will rot your stomache. Do not worry though, we have a pill for that as well. The nausea from the ulcer pill, we have a pill for that as well. Too fat, there is a pill, etc, etc. WHAT A JOKE.
Like most things now days, we as Americans, ask very few questions, and we believe the Government is taking care of us. Believe it or not this is why our knuckle headed president is proposing limits on who you can sue in a court of law, and what your settlement will be. So what if someone died, it controls the population, and our bottom line remains intact.
Todays medications are no better than the Snake Oil, that was sold in the times before the FDA, and we have made little, if any progress.
Please read the book, ask questions, and ask more questions. Become more proactive concerning yours and your family's health.
Book Description
Exposing the most controversial, little-known practices of America’s most flawed system, Time magazine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team pulls back the curtain on the health care industry to explain exactly how things grew so out of control.
Dirty examination and operating rooms in doctor’s offices and hospitals . . . Health care executives pulling in millions in bonuses for denying treatment to the sick . . . More than 100 million people with inadequate or no medical coverage . . . This may sound like the predicament of a third-world nation, but this is America’s health care reality today. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, yet our benefits are shrinking and life expectancy is shorter here than in countries that spend significantly less per capita. Meanwhile, HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains reap tremendous profits, while politicians—beholden to insurers and drug companies—enact legislation for the benefit of the few rather than the many, while the entire system is on the verge of collapse.
In Critical Condition, award-winning investigative journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele expose the horror of what health care in America has become. They profile patients and doctors trapped by the system and offer startling personal stories that illuminate what’s gone wrong. Doctors tell of being second-guessed and undermined by health care insurers; nurses recount chilling tales of hospital meltdowns; patients explain how they’ve been victimized by a system that is meant to care for them. Drug companies profit by selling pills in the same manner that Madison Avenue sells soap, while Wall Street rakes in billions by building up and then tearing down health care businesses. And politicians pass legislation perpetuating the injustices and out-right fraud the system encourages.
By analyzing the industry and offering an insightful prescription for getting it back on the right track, Critical Condition is an enormously compelling investigative work that addresses the concerns of every American.
Download Description
Exposing the most controversial, little-known practices of America's most flawed system, Time magazine's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team pulls back the curtain on the health care industry to explain exactly how things grew so out of control.
Dirty examination and operating rooms in doctor's offices and hospitals…Health care executives pulling in millions in bonuses for denying treatment to the sick…More than 100 million people with inadequate or no medical coverage…This may sound like the predicament of a third-world nation, but this is America's health care reality today. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, yet our benefits are shrinking and life expectancy is shorter here than in countries that spend significantly less per capita. Meanwhile, HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains reap tremendous profits, while politicians—beholden to insurers and drug companies—enact legislation for the benefit of the few rather than the many, while the entire system is on the verge of collapse.
In CRITICAL CONDITION, award-winning investigative journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele expose the horror of what health care in America has become. They profile patients and doctors trapped by the system and offer startling personal stories that illuminate what's gone wrong. Doctors tell of being second-guessed and undermined by health care insurers; nurses recount chilling tales of hospital meltdowns; patients explain how they've been victimized by a system that is meant to care for them. Drug companies profit by selling pills in the same manner that Madison Avenue sells soap, while Wall Street rakes in billions by building up and then tearing down health care businesses. And politicians pass legislation perpetuating the injustices and out-right fraud the system encourages.
By analyzing the industry and offering an insightful prescription for getting it back on the right track, CRITICAL CONDITION is an enormously compelling investigative work that addresses the concerns of every American.
Customer Reviews:
Has to be the next book you read!!!!!.......2007-07-27
Everybody who is fed up with the current U.S. health care situation needs to take the time to read this book. It is written for the masses who need a general understanding of how this for-profit system is ruining the quality of life of millions of Americans. Especially with the 2008 presidential election in full gear, this book will give you enough basic information about our existing health care system to put the pressure on all of the 2008 presidential candidates to endorse a national single-payer health care system covering all Americans. Finally, putting us on par with every other "developed" and "civilized" nation on Earth. Excellent work by Barrett.
Excellent book.......2007-06-20
I watched Sicko and loved it. I hated the reality it showed. The problem is I didn't want to jump on his bandwagon until I did some more reading on my own.
On some website, someone wrote that they highly recommend this book. I borrowed it from the library.
This takes Sicko and multiplies its intensity by 10. It's too bad the authors couldn't get the power of visuals and sound that movies, like Moore's enjoys. Otherwise this book would HAMMER this country so hard, it would tremble.
If you liked Sicko, but want more, READ THIS BOOK! If you hated Sicko, READ THIS BOOK, to get a dose of reality. Anti-moore fans can't say much after reading this book because Moore has nothing to do with this.
While I would have liked some graphs/charts or some another illustrative, visual way to reinforce the facts, this book is GREAT! Please read it!
Good research, but flawed.......2007-03-22
This seems to be a well-researched book and I think they do an excellent job of exploring the problem of health care in the USA today. In my opinion, however, they don't go far enough in their exploration.
The authors talk about the high cost of medical treatment. There's no denying the expense. I'm aware of more than one time when a patient has received needed care only because family and friends raised the money to pay for it. However, the way that government interference contributes to the jacked up prices is barely mentioned. (An example from a few years ago in the news, in a western state, all insurers were required by law to cover everyone who came to them, even those dying of incurable diseases. As a direct consequence of the new law, the prices of both medical treatment and insurance rates rose dramatically.)
The authors talk about how many pills are marketed and overprescribed (and I agree with them on this), but again, they don't consider in any depth the government's contribution to the problem. The DEA is waging major war on painkillers. Physicians are intimidated into not prescribing needed painkillers. This artificial market control is raising prices, as well as lowering the quality of health care and hurting people who desperately need those drugs. The authors also ignore how very affordable drugs are kept illegal by federal regulation, despite state voters voting to make them legal.
Where they really flounder, however, is when they propose their solution. They give an unconvincing plan of getting the government involved to wisely and charitably make sure everyone gets the competent medical services they need. This seems to me to be more about what government *should* do rather than what it likely would do. The government is a major part of the problem now. How is it going to change and become the solution if it takes direct control?
It seems to me that they haven't thought through their position. For instance, they write:
"Resistance [to our suggested health care reform] would come from health care providers themselves; from insurers, some of whom would go out of business; from some in the U.S. government bureaucracy who would lose control; from the antitax community; from some physicians and individuals who are content with their personal situations, and most of all, from members of Congress who benefit so handsomely from free-market health care."
I was confused by this because of how often they said most of these people were desperate for change. For example, this statement:
"We have a system in such constant turmoil that almost everyone is unhappy--patients, doctors, nurses, aides, technicians. Almost everyone. But for a lucky few, the turmoil is worth a lot of money."
If all but a "lucky few" are unhappy, then why would they resist change? This goes against what they said repeatedly before the chapter on their propopsed remedy, including some compelling anecdotes of these people who'd resist having been disillusioned and alienated from the system as it is. And why would this government that already has control dread losing control by getting even more control? For that matter, if the government is dysfunctional now, why wouldn't it continue to be dysfunctional later? And if their remedy wouldn't add any costs to society but replace existing taxes, then why would antitax people resist it so bitterly? While the antitax folk might resist any taxes, I'm pretty sure they'd rather taxes go for health care than for the wars at home and abroad and the other things that make people ashamed or angry to be forced to pay for.
I also wish they had spent more time considering how health care works in other countries. I'm not sure that the Scandinavean model could work for the USA because of how different the two places are in population and character, but I would've liked more discussion of the possibilities. I was intrigued by what they said about the system in France, but again, they didn't go into details. I'm also interested in hearing more about Thai health care, which I understand is affordable and excellent despite no national coverage (and popular with some Americans who can afford to go there to get it).
In general, I wish that they'd have explored other, already functioning systems more, and looked at why our FDA is so inferior in ethics and practice to its counterparts in other countries, as well as considering in more depth why (or why not) another country's system could work for us.
Also, from their description, it sounds as if health care was good in the USA until Wall Street, supported by their cronies in Congress, took the medical business over. If that is true, why not focus on getting Wall Street out, instead of the government in? Especially given how badly the government has done so far?
Overall, I think this book is important in understanding the problem of health care in the USA today, though not sufficient all by itself. I'm sorry the authors didn't put more thought into proposing solutions for us to get out of this mess.
More than food for thought.......2006-01-04
The book could have been shorter, without a lot of the individual "sob stories", which I know help sensationalize a news article, but made the book drag on for me.
The authors hit the nail on the head when they bring up all the bankruptcies and foreclosures in our country due to health care costs, and also the horrible cost-shifting that gets placed onto the uninsured among us to support the deep discounts that Medicare, Medicaid and now a plethora of insurers have negotiated with providers.
I'm a dentist, and do not participate in plans which would insist on my discounting services to certain groups. If I am going to discount them (and I do) they are to those less fortunate in life financially, and are not determined by someone's age, race, or employer.
The fact that we have a bizarre system where your health care is tied to who you work for is perverse. The fact that this very system drives up costs for uninsured people, while taking more money out of direct health care and more into insurance company administration and profit is sickening.
I don't have the answers to our problem, but I think that this book is the foundation for much dialogue and debate.
The Time Is Now For Health Care Finance Reform!.......2005-08-23
I am running for Congress in Maryland's first district with health care finance reform as my number one priority. This book contained valuable data to help shore up my position. Read this book, make sure you're registered to vote, then let's elect a progressive, reform-minded Democratic majority into Congress!
Visit [...] for information on how to contribute to our campaign for health care finance reform.
Amazon.com
No interest for one year! No annual fee! No minimum payments for six months! And, if you want to believe Robert Manning, there's no way out of the debt that we find ourselves in, as individuals and as a country. Credit Card Nation combines debt of every kind--consumer, corporate, and governmental--and creates a vast landscape of profit-spewing lenders and struggling debtors present at every level of economics. Appalling statistics set readers off on a depressing journey: the years between 1980 and 1994 saw annual consumer charges skyrocket from $170 billion to $581 billion, with the average household carrying over $4,000 in revolving debt. Accompanied by the erasure of nearly $100 billion in corporate debt and tremendous tax cuts for ever-merging conglomerates, the end of the 20th century seems to be just the beginning of an overwhelming cycle. While Manning's book is extensively researched, it is also extremely readable. Individual stories of junk bondsmen, corporate raiders, and middle-class consumers are threaded throughout the pages of charts and statistics, with a few surprises. While most media would have us believe that students who rack up charge accounts are totally irresponsible, the reality is that some of these students are helping their families with cash-advance loans to make mortgage or insurance payments. Emphasis is also placed on the tremendous advertising budgets of credit card companies: Manning comments on "how quickly the cultural norms have changed in the Credit Card Nation," we see a poster insisting "money can't buy you love, but a credit card can get you started." This is not a self-help book, and Manning has no 12-step program for debtors at any level. Credit Card Nation simply tells it as it is. --Jill Lightner
Book Description
A stunning examination of how the credit card industry has changed the way Americans buy, loan, and live
Credit Card Nation is part history and part expos of the damaging social and political consequences of America's increasing reliance on credit cards. Using original research and consumer interviews, Manning analyzes the growth of the credit card industry and its related businesses by looking at the story of its consumers-the people who use credit for convenience and those who rely on it for financial stability.
In addition to providing a consumer history of credit card usage, Robert Manning analyzes the larger societal attitudes toward debt. The history of the credit card industry's expansion is one of the creation of a new class of consumers who utilize credit-and its steep interest and penalty rates-for economic survival. Manning discusses the societal toll that the "credit card nation" is placing on the young, the elderly, and all those in search of the "good life" marketed by the credit card and banking industries.
Customer Reviews:
Robert D. Manning is one of the most influential "public" scholars in the US.......2007-09-07
Robert D. Manning is a rare combination of influential scholar and public policy "statesmen" whose work has not only inspired hundreds of scholars projects and thousands of media stories but also directly influence public understanding and regulation of financial institutions, the deregulated banking system, subprime lending, and the global dimensions of asset-backed securities.
Author of the widely acclaimed book, CREDIT CARD NATION, and editorial advisor of the powerful documentary, IN DEBT WE TRUST, which is based on his book, Dr. Manning's scholarly and public policy work constitutes a pathbreaking intellectual enterprise: a dispassionate and ongoing investigation of the nature of America's changing attitudes and behaviors toward consumer credit, the power of financial institutions, and role of the banking system in changing American society. Manning's analysis of America's growing dependence on consumer credit, the powerful financial institutions that have emerged under the deregulation era and shaped the fragile underpinnings of the "American Dream," are presented in the context of broad social, economic, and cultural perspectives as US society grapples with its declining position in the global economy.
Dr. Manning has produced a truly creative approach to analyzing the post-industrial society where there is more profit to be made financing consumption than producing the items themselves. This is an unusual book in its effective weaving of macro-social and economic trends with carefully selected case-studies of companies and housholds. There is no attempt to present glossy oversimplifications, black-and-white statements, or sweeping generalizations. Rather, the book seeks to demonstrate how globalization and US industrial restructuring have dramatically changed the opportunities for the American middle-class based on their earned income (remember the primacy of the one-income earning family in the 1960s!) AND the pressures of the federal government to aid the suffering banking industry through favorable deregulatory policies which indirectly contributed to the soaring federal deficit. Manning emphasizes that there is no single institution or social trend that is responsible for this phenomenon as he artfully explains how all sectors of American society have become integrally dependent on borrowing--the "Triangle of Debt."
This book is an impressive intellectual achievement: in a dispassionate manner it marshals overwhelming evidence and complex conceptual models that reveal the predatory policy banking institutions and marketing tools that have addicted most people to easy credit in America--both young and old. Furthermore, this book was the precursor to foresightful academic predictions of the subprime mortgage crisis and I understand that his next book systematically examines the consequences of the Credit Card Nation as the country's Baby Boomers enter into an underfunded quagmire of retirement. Aside from the momentous intellectual contributions of the book, Dr Manning is one of the rare breed of scholars that practices what he preaches in the classroom through Congressional testimony, trenchant policy analyses, frequent media commentary, and his own carefully designed alternative to consumer bankruptcy.
One nation, under debt, with liberty and justice for some.......2007-09-06
We're in the middle of an ongoing social and economic crisis according to Robert D. Manning, author of "Credit Card Nation". And with supporting evidence like his figures of every credit cardholder having 10 cards in their name and every family revolving over $4,000 in debt (the number now is over $7,000), it's easy to see why he feels like it is a crisis. In this fascinating book, Manning describes the situation thoroughly, shows who's at fault, and what we should expect as a result of the situation.
Manning separates the country into two categories of credit card users, the convenience sector, who pay their debt off monthly, and the revolver sector, who have accumulated all the personal debt this country maintains. He focuses on the revolvers and the dire straits they're in due to the interest they pay on their debt. The author does mention some bright spots in the history of debt (e.g. 'The Blair Witch Project', which was financed on credit cards and ended up making millions), but the overall picture portrayed is bleak and Manning doesn't describe how everyday people can take advantage of the credit card economy.
One major liability in this book (no pun intended) is that Manning repeatedly blames the credit card industry for putting so much effort into their marketing. It's true that the industry uses some sneaky techniques to get people to become lifelong subscription holders to their finance charges, but some of the industry's marketing can be used for consumer benefit.
Manning has a great angle on the social aspects of our spending society (from a Puritan savings mentality to a commercial spending mentality) and how it affects the separate classes (the system negatively affects the people who need it most while helping the people who need it least). His philosophy on the drawbacks of a culture that punishes production but rewards consumption should also be transferred to taxes as well as credit.
All in all, this is a thoroughly insightful book, which everyone should read.
JSBM
Author, How to Take Advantage of the People Who Are Trying to Take Advantage of You: 50 Ways to Capitalize on the System
Valuable information but the writing style is odd .......2007-05-28
I have no arguments with Prof. Manning's points, although I suppose I too was less than moved by the stories of college students who had to declare bankruptcy to pay for their bar tabs and expensive trips. I just didn't care about those predicaments all that much. But what I found less than valuable about this book was the writing style - as the professional reviewer said, it was not only filled with jargon, but in my opinion seems to have been written a few sentences at a time, with long gaps in between the writing sessions. The author continually repeats facts after several paragraphs, and treats the information as if we're hearing it for the first time. He even did this, oddly enough, in the same *paragraph* once - I did read the entire book because I liked the fifty or so pages of original material among the 250 other pages that repeated it. I also think he enjoyed using "big words" and convoluted sentences even when they hid the clarity of what he was trying to say - or, as he would put it, even when the obfuscation became peremptorily more insistent.
Scary stuff.......2006-11-06
A great overview of the precarious state of credit we've reached and how we got here. Good lessons for all: policy-makers, borrowers, lenders, college students.
A Morality Play?.......2005-09-15
Overall I felt that this book could have been, and should have been, much better. The ever-increasing level of credit-card debt is a real problem, as are the abuses of sub-prime lenders. But, the author's perception and description of the problem is often off, and the proposed solutions are inadequate.
The author offers a morality play in which the Merchants of Greed victimize both the poor and the middle class, while convincing users of convenience to think of themselves as more virtuous than the debt-ridden (even though their perks come at the expense of the less fortunate).
No doubt our ancestors would be horrified to watch us incur debt to buy a pair of shoes, fill the gas tank, or buy a restaurant meal. But, their horror would come from not from morality but from fear: in their time, mortgaging the farm often led to its loss, and mortgaging one's future income might lead to the poorhouse
Today there is a balance (which the author does not acknowledge) between easy credit (which leads some users to "max out") and restricted credit (which prevents most low-income people from obtaining a credit card). Speaking as one who lived for years on a near minimum-wage salary, I'd have to say that it was to my benefit to obtain a card, because (1) although I could not afford to own a car, I could occasionally afford to rent one; and (2) the Internet functions somewhat as Sears did 100 years ago in that if the local merchants charge too much, one has a ready alternative.
In this author's morality play credit merchants appear as the devil- and the devil's voice is advertising. Thus, welfare moms obtain bedroom sets they can't afford from Rent-A-Center because "it's hard not to succumb to the industry's aggressive marketing campaigns."
But, we're talking about adults, and there are alternatives. I did not buy entertainment products I could not afford and, when I could afford them but local merchants charged too much, I ordered through the mail (or,for more portable items, took a bus to a discount store). For furniture, I bought from a Salvation Army thrift store and hired a truck to take it home.
The point is not that I was more virtuous than a RAC customer, but (1) some people's lives are just too chaotic to plan more than a week or two ahead, and for these everything must be bought on credit because saving is impossible; and, (2) "have it now" and "it must be new" are very important values to RAC's customers. Government regulation cannot address either.
Regulation (the author's prime solution) can curb some of the worst abuses. For example, gaming commissions can forbid casino operators from locating ATMs inside the casino; payday lenders can be forbidden to roll over loans more than three times; credit card lenders can be required to set higher minimum payments (to shorten payback time).
Nonetheless, market forces and the creativity of lenders and merchants will defeat most well-meaning regulation. For example, Native American casinos can evade most state regulation, and the high price of credit is easily hidden in the price (or rent) of consumer goods. Indeed, rent-to-own was largely invented to evade state usury laws. Short of a government bureaucracy to establish maximum prices (and rents?) for everything what, exactly, would he do about this?
The author describes real problems. But, his insistence on seeing "Credit Card America" primarily as a morality play limits both his vision, and his range of possible solutions and remediations.
Book Description
The problems of medical care confront us daily: a bureaucracy that makes a trip to the doctor worse than a trip to the dentist, doctors who can't practice medicine the way they choose, more than 40 million people without health insurance. "Medical care is in crisis," we are repeatedly told, and so it is. Barely one in five Americans thinks the medical system works well. Enter David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist who served on President Clinton's health care task force and later advised presidential candidate Bill Bradley. One of the nation's leading experts on the subject, Cutler argues in Your Money or Your Life that health care has in fact improved exponentially over the last fifty years, and that the successes of our system suggest ways in which we might improve care, make the system easier to deal with, and extend coverage to all Americans. Cutler applies an economic analysis to show that our spending on medicine is well worth it--and that we could do even better by spending more. Further, millions of people with easily manageable diseases, from hypertension to depression to diabetes, receive either too much or too little care because of inefficiencies in the way we reimburse care, resulting in poor health and in some cases premature death. The key to improving the system, Cutler argues, is to change the way we organize health care. Everyone must be insured for the medical system to perform well, and payments should be based on the quality of services provided not just on the amount of cutting and poking performed. Lively and compelling, Your Money or Your Life offers a realistic yet rigorous economic approach to reforming health care--one that promises to break through the stalemate of failed reform.
Customer Reviews:
useful book on current healthcare economics.......2004-08-25
This book is probably an important addition to the literature on healthcare economics. It offers a good corrective to the politics out there. It reminds us that healthcare spending is not wasted spending, in the sense that it almost always adds value. It also points out that in many ways the costs of healthcare are FALLING.
The real question is how can we continue to improve the value of our healthcare dollar? Cutler concurs with many conservative healthcare analysts that the real problem is that the incentives in the American healthcare system are wrong. The incentives are aligned in favor of healthcare interventions rather than health. He proposes to address this incentive problem by having the government intervene in the market by providing the right incentives. In essence, the government would post-hoc realign the incentives by rewarding quality after-the-fact and beyond fees for services. In addition, he would subsidize insurance to create universal coverage.
This is an interesting idea. At the very least, it makes the important observations that the current system is rife with market failures due to the government-imposed structure of the market.
He does not seriously investigate other options. Both single-payer and conservative proposals are rejected with a single paragraph each. This probably misses some significant arguments from each. My sense is that he only sees one kind of market failure when there are at least two. The first problem has to do with incentives, which he sees.
The second problem has to do with information that is not efficiently used. Many of the conservative thinkers on this have argued that IT ought to provide significant cost-savings. In essence, 13% of our economy is still operating without the information processing that has revolutionalized the information economy.
Tort Reform Ignored.......2004-08-03
While I found Dr Cutler's analysis penetrating, I was disappointed that he did not discuss in any detail the large impact on medical costs of medical malpractice lawsuits. Not only do these lawsuits increase malpractice insurance premiums of physicians and health insurance premiums of patients, they lead to wasteful defensive medicine, as physicians do unnecessary tests and procedures in order to reduce the risk of malpractice suits. Tort reform is essential to control rising medical costs.
compelling approach to fix the broken American health system.......2004-01-29
Forty million Americans lack health care insurance and costs leap three and four times the inflation rate yet few Americans feel the system provides adequate care. Harvard economics professor and health-care expert Dr. David M. Cutler believes that the problem lies with the inability for most people to understand opportunity costs based on choices that may not lead to an improved life quality. The government and medical leadership exacerbate the problem with saving money as their solution, ignoring effectiveness. He makes a strong case on how much health care has dramatically improved over the past five decades as dramatized by longer productive life spans. Dr. Cutler believes that more money should be spent on further medical advances and that universal coverage for all needs should be implemented so that the present day uninsured can afford care rather than drain at a more costly rate the system. The key is to change from a system that economically encourages doctors to choose techniques that are not always the best for the patient factoring in cost and life quality to a system that reimburses doctors for quality service (not as hard as it first sounds).
Though at times the medical supply and demand is difficult to grasp, YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE makes a powerful well written argument to reengineer a system in which political band aids fail everyone. The case for quality and the explanation of choices are well done and surprisingly easy to follow while offering a seemingly radical but compellingly logical approach to fixing the broken American health system.
Harriet Klausner
Book Description
This new and expanded 16th edition reveals exactly how to get thousands of fantastic free things of every type and description... free money for college, free gifts from the President, free recipes, free product samples, free things on the internet and LOTS more!
Customer Reviews:
Don't Get Your Hopes Up.......2006-09-06
Free things? Not really. Recipes, information and how to get information is about all you get. The best FREE THING was my ten bucks for nothing.
Book Description
Now available in a paperback edition, b /b b i Consumption and the World of Goods /i /b offers a new interpretation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one that shapes a new historical landscape based on the consumption of goods and services. Leading specialists from the United States and Europe focus on problems of methodology and historiography, goods and consumption, production and the meaning of possessions, literacy and numeracy, books, newspapers, objects and images. The result is a rich new direction in early modern cultural and social history. br br b Contributors: /b Jean-Christophe Agnew, Joyce Appleby, T.H. Breen, John Brewer, Peter Burke, Colin Campbell, Patricia Cline Cohen, David Cressy, Jan de Vries, Cissie Fairchilds, C.Y. Ferdinand, Iaroslav Isaievych, Sidney Mintz, John Money, Chandra Mukerji, Jeremy D. Popkin, Roy Porter, Simon Schaffer
Book Description
Luxury isn't just for the rich, says James B. Twitchell. Today you don't need a six-figure income to wear pashmina, drink a limited-edition coffee at Starbucks, or drive a Mercedes home to collapse on the couch in front of a flat-screen plasma TV. In Living It Up, sharp-eyed consumer anthropologist Twitchell takes a witty and insightful look at luxury -- what it is, who defines it, and why we can't seem to get enough of it.
In recent years, says Twitchell, luxury spending has grown much faster than overall spending -- and it continues to grow despite the economic recession. Luxury has become such a powerful marketing force that it cuts across every layer of society, spawning a magazine devoted to spas, cashmere bedspreads on sale at Kmart, and a dazzling array of bottled waters.
Twitchell says that the democratization of luxury has had a unifying effect on culture. Luxury items tell a story that we want to identify with, and more people than ever aspire to the story of Ralph Lauren's Polo or Patek Philippe. Shopping itself is no longer a chore but a transcendent experience in which we shop not so much for goods as for an identity.
Sharply observed and wickedly funny, Living It Up is a revealing and entertaining examination of why we are all part of the cult of luxury.
Customer Reviews:
A glorious state of denial.......2006-01-16
This deserves three stars, at least, for its wit. Even as I disagreed with Twitchell, I found myself wanting to read more.
There are several things terribly wrong with his argument, such as his ignoring the mindlessness of much consumption. He thinks consumers are aware, but that doesn't hold water, or advertisers would not make or spend so much to influence everyone, and they would not be so successful.
The real trouble I have with this book is that Twitchell never, ever connects the growing consumption of "unnecessary" luxury goods with the incredible destruction they are causing all over the world. Even a passing acknowledgment of the environmental catastrophe related to our consumption would make this a better book. At least he could admit he's only interested in luxury as a construct, as something to play with philosophically.
Still, it's definitely worth a read.
Terrible.......2005-01-11
The author has no familiarity with his subject and routinely provides the reader with incorrect information.
A Guilty Gordon Gekko.......2005-01-01
Living it Up starts with the premise that consumption--even overconsumption--is good for the economy and good for your community. Twitchell makes a coherent argument that those who pay ridiculous prices for things they don't need make it possible for the rest of us to pay lower prices for the same things. Then, what used to be a luxury to one generation (indoor plumbing, cars, computers) becomes a necessity for the next.
But somehow, Twitchell seems guilty about all this. He even quotes Gekko (from the movie Wall Street), a bit sheepishly. He praises "first-users" (those who buy the first VCRs, etc. at high prices) while sneering at the stereotypical yuppie with all his toys. Professor Twitchell mocks the voluntary simplicity movement by picking the most hypocritical example he can find, of a back-to-nature advocate who buys acres of her neighbor's land. But he ignores such aspects as not spending more than you have, reducing the amount of stuff you own, enjoying the occasional luxury rather than shopping as a habit.
Interesting reading if you are fascinated by our consumer culture, but a bit confusing as the professor tries to decide where he stands on over-consumption.
Luxury, a new religion analyzed.......2003-08-31
This is a landmark book. The author analyzes in very detail the mechanisms behind selling luxury to the public, including the religious attributes affixed to those products.
"Probably it shouldn't get into the hands of consumers", because they might find out they are spending too much money for ordinarily manufactured goods with high status affixed by advertising. On my trips to the US, I wondered how big, luxury only shopping malls could survive, this book tells the reason why. Europe is still more conservative with luxury spending.
I wanted to give it 5 stars, but the language used is very difficult to read. To exclude most luxury spenders?
Posh LUST.......2003-02-26
Entertaining book, well written, thought provoking, ultimately absolving us of our sins of posh LUST.
Book Description
The ninth edition of Consumer Economic Issues in America, is a comprehensive update of one of the most thorough and readable texts in the field. The text is straightforward and highlights the fundamental consumer economic issues affecting all consumers. Author E. Thomas Garman educates and empowers students as they gain knowledge of their rights and responsibilities as consumers. An emphasis is placed on understanding the American economic system, consumer concepts, evaluative criteria and environmental issues. The book takes a normative, pro-consumer viewpoint.
Book Description
This book takes a surprising look at the hidden world of broccoli, connecting American consumers concerned about their health and diet with Maya farmers concerned about holding onto their land and making a living.
Compelling life stories and rich descriptions from ethnographic fieldwork among supermarket shoppers in Nashville, Tennessee and Maya farmers in highland Guatemala bring the commodity chain of this seemingly mundane product to life. For affluent Americans, broccoli fits into everyday concerns about eating right, being healthy, staying in shape, and valuing natural foods. For Maya farmers, this new export crop provides an opportunity to make a little extra money in difficult, often risky circumstances. Unbeknownst to each other, the American consumer and the Maya farmer are bound together in webs of desire and material production.
Book Description
A brilliant history of American misgivings about the consequences of their comfort, affluence, and luxury. An illuminating study, intelligent and perceptive...full of interesting insights. --Reviews in American History
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General
| Personal Health
| Health, Mind & Body
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The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients
On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health
Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs
The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health
