Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America's Health Care System [NOOK Book]

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Overview

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 ...
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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Not to be confused with the bestselling personal finance volume (by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin), this work examines the health care crisis in America. Many people readily admit they're unhappy with both the cost and the care they receive from their doctors and are very frustrated with the health-care system. However, according to Cutler, an economics professor at Harvard and health-care adviser in the Clinton administration, the advances made in health care over the past 50 years have been quite positive and have contributed to longer and more productive lives. But people have a hard time understanding their choices-paying more for medicine that will keep them alive or choosing costly surgery that may not guarantee a better quality of life. Cutler offers numerous examples of medical progress along with economic reasoning to persuade readers that more and more medical advances should be sought, along with better medical coverage for everyone. "For medical care to be effective, people must be able to afford it. The issue of affordability is clearly a concern of the uninsured. The uninsured rely on the largesse of the medical system as a whole." Cutler's discussion of managed care and how doctors are reimbursed for certain procedures but discouraged from other practices is especially clear. Cutler's position-health insurance for all and doctor reimbursement by quality, not simply service-is clear and compelling. This book will be of most interest to government officials, doctors and others in the health-care industry. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
While there is general agreement that the healthcare system in the United States needs reform, debate continues over what form it should take. Cutler (economics, Harvard) proposes a universal care system that rests somewhere between a single-payer model and one that is based solely on employer payments. He briefly traces the history of healthcare in the United States and then explains how in his research he arrived at specific dollar figures for the value of such things as a year of human life. That serves as the basis for three chapters describing studies in which he participated: newborn health, mental health, and the care of cardiovascular disease. Discussing the costs, benefits, and trade-offs in each example, he then offers his own vision. George Halvorson and George Isham suggest a similar approach in Epidemic of Care, which discusses HealthPartners in Minneapolis, an HMO mentioned favorably by Cutler. Recommended for academic, medical, and large public librarises.-Dick Maxwell, Penrose-St. Francis Health Svcs., Colorado Springs Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780199839742
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
  • Publication date: 2/5/2004
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • File size: 2 MB

Meet the Author

David M. Cutler is a professor of economics at Harvard University. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and regular advisor to governments and corporations.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Crisis by Design
1 The Health of the Nation: A History 1
2 Pricing the Priceless 10
3 Success and Failure at the Beginning of Life 22
4 The Power of the Pill: Prozac and the Revolution in Mental Health Care 32
5 The Heart of the Matter 47
6 Medical Care: Of What Value? 61
7 You Get What You Pay For 76
8 The Managed Care Debacle 86
9 Paying for Health 100
10 Universal Benefits 114
Notes 125
Acknowledgements 153
Index 155

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