Epidemic of Care: A Call for Safer, Better, and More Accountable Health Care

Health care costs in America are skyrocketing, with premium increases of thirty to forty percent not unheard of for some insurers and some consumers. And what does the system have to show for it? More than forty million uninsured citizens, inconsistent and unaccountable care, and the fastest growing and most wasteful health care delivery economy in the world. In Epidemic of Care, two of the country′s most prominent leaders in health care offer a primer on health care cost drivers— and what can be done to curtail them and save the system. This hard–hitting look at a failing system revealsWhy the cost of health care will cause deep cuts in the take–home pay of American workers— a twelve percent premium increase wipes out a four percent salary increaseHow voter demands for changes in the system will bring about a political nightmareWhy many smaller companies will drop health care coverage altogether, leaving millions uninsuredHow our health care delivery system is really a non–system—with millions of independent, uncoordinated, and separately moving parts and its own prioritiesWhy health care will never approach perfection until computers become exam room tools for the frontline physicianHow to cure the system in a way politically acceptable to all sides

Spis treści:
Preface and Acknowledgments.
Foreword.
Introduction: What Happened to My Paycheck?
The Authors.
1. Miracles Cost Money.
2. Unsafe at Any Cost.
3. Who Really Pays for All of That Care?
4. If It Works or Might Work, You Owe It to Me: How Americans’ Entitlement to Care Drives Up Costs.
5. Care Monopolies.
6. Does the United States Pay Fair Prices by World Standards?
7. How the Internet Is Changing Health Care: I Learned About My Prosthesis on the Web.
8. The Coming Crunch in Health Care Workers.
9. Medical Necessity Calls, Fee Cuts, and PR Errors— Not a Good Start.
10. So Why Don’t We Just Go to a Single–Payer System and Save Bucks Like the Brits?
11. Where Do We Go from Here? A Call for a National Health Strategy.
12. Patients Deserve Safe Care.
13. 401(k) Equivalent Choices in Health Care.
14. Most Health Care Costs Are the Result of Bad Health.
15. Caregiver Monopolies Should Not Be Our Care Model of Choice.
16. Cut the Number of Uninsured in Half.
17. Training Tomorrow’s Caregivers and Reengineering Care Delivery.
18. A Call to Action.
Notes.
Index.

Nota biograficzna:
George C. Halvorson is chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, America′s leading integrated health care organization. He was formerly president and CEO of HealthPartners in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has helped start HMOs in countries around the world. Halvorson has written several books on health care topics, including the highly–praised Strong Medicine (1993).
George J. Isham, M.D., is medical director and chief health officer for HealthPartners. He is a founding board member of the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement in Minnesota and has been a national leader in quality improvement methods.

Okładka tylna:
Health care costs in America are skyrocketing, with premium increases of thirty to forty percent not unheard of for some insurers and some consumers. And what does the system have to show for it? More than forty million uninsured citizens, inconsistent and unaccountable care, and the fastest growing and most wasteful health care delivery economy in the world. In Epidemic of Care, two of the country′s most prominent leaders in health care offer a primer on health care cost drivers— and what can be done to curtail them and save the system. This hard–hitting look at a failing system revealsWhy the cost of health care will cause deep cuts in the take–home pay of Ameri can workers— a twelve percent premium increase wipes out a four percent salary increaseHow voter demands for changes in the system will bring about a political nightmareWhy many smaller companies will drop health care coverage altogether, leaving millions uninsuredHow our health care delivery system is really a non–system—with millions of independent, uncoordinated, and separately moving parts and its own prioritiesWhy health care will never approach perfection until computers become exam room tools for the frontline physicianHow to cure the system in a way politically acceptable to all sides