Purple Solutions: A bipartisan roadmap to better healthcare in America

by Daniel S Sem

Overview

America spends more than any other developed country on healthcare, and yet does not provide better health outcomes. Why is healthcare so expensive in America, and what is the solution to this out-of-control cost curve? Republicans and Democrats can't agree, and yet rational compromise is desperately needed. Perhaps the best solution to better healthcare in America lies between all this political hyperbole. In Purple Solutions, a collection of 20 experts have come together to share their thoughts and expertise on how to reform healthcare in America. Expert contributors include the former president of the AMA, policy and think tank leaders, healthcare executives, entrepreneurs looking to disrupt the current medical industrial complex, politicians, payers, providers and legal experts. The solution is in our hands as consumers and voters, not in the hands of big government or corporate medicine. Viable bipartisan solutions to healthcare reform are presented - we just need to change our mindset, and then convince our elected officials to compromise and work towards giving us better healthcare in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578706559
Publisher:	Daniel Sem
Publication date:	07/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	428
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Daniel S. Sem, PhD, MBA, JD, received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MBA and JD degrees from Marquette University. Currently, he is dean and professor of business, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, and director of technology transfer at Concordia University in Wisconsin. He also serves as director of the Rx Think Tank, focused on healthcare policy reform. Dr. Sem has 25 years of experience in healthcare innovation and has published over 60 papers. His passion is leading healthcare innovation and policy initiatives with the goal of achieving better healthcare outcomes for patients, whether through development of new medicines or new ways to deliver healthcare.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Where Are We Now? The Good and the Bad

Chapter 1. Why Healthcare in America is More Expensive than it Needs to Be. (Daniel Sem)

Chapter 2. Technological Innovation and the Supply Side of Healthcare. (Robert Graboyes)

 

Section 2: Empowering Patients, Providers and Payers: Consumerization, Transparency and Competition in Healthcare

Chapter 3: Created (Un)Equal: Legislating Quality in Healthcare. (Greg Watchmaker)

Chapter 4: Do we Want a Medical Industrial Complex or a Healthcare Delivery System that Empowers Patients? (Katie Nemitz, Daniel Sem)

Chapter 5: Consolidation in Healthcare: A Case Report on the U.S. Medical Industrial Complex. (Barbara McAneny)

Chapter 6: Direct Care: Empowering Patients. (David Balat, Stephen Pickett, Elizabeth O'Connor)

Chapter 7: Reforming Healthcare Licensure for the 21^st Century. (Murray Feldstein)

Chapter 8: Purchasing Healthcare as a Consumer: When Does it Make Sense, and How do I know if I'm Getting a Better Deal?

(Eric Haberichter)

Chapter 9: Lessons from the Grass Roots for National Healthcare Reform. (John Torinus)

Chapter 10: A Retail Revolution: Consumerizing Healthcare in America's Drugstores. (Daniel Sem)

Chapter 11: Purple Solutions. (Daniel Sem)

 

Section 3: Drug Prices

Chapter 12. Should Drugs Ever be Expensive? Drug Discovery and Development, Pricing and Market Forces. (Catherine Bodnar, Daniel Sem)

Chapter 13. Problems in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: From Pharma to PBM to Pharmacy - Who is to Blame, and Where is the Money Going? (Daniel Sem)

Chapter 14. Pitfalls of Price Transparency in Healthcare - Especially for Pharmaceuticals. (Bob Graboyes).

Chapter 15. The Orphan Drug Act: A 30-year Perspective on Life-saving FDA Regulations. (Anne Marie Finley)

Chapter 16. How Outdated FDA Over-regulation Is Limiting Patient Access to the Next Generation of Treatments. (Naomi Lopez-Bauman, Christina Sandefur)

Chapter 17. Purple Solutions.  (Daniel Sem)

 

Section 4: A Healthcare Safety Net  

Chapter 18. America Already Offers Universal Healthcare, the Most Expensive Way Possible. (Daniel Sem)

Chapter 19. The Economist Perspective on a Healthcare Safety Net. (Tyler Watts)

Chapter 20. A Safety Net Health Insurance Proposal: Back to the Future with the Wisconsin Health Plan of 2005 ... A Review. (Curt Gielow)

Chapter 21. Reforming America's Health Insurance System: YoungMedicare. (David Riemer)

Chapter 22. Safety Net Alternatives for Providers and Employers. (James Tarasovitch, Charlie Stevens).

Chapter 23. Purple Solutions (Daniel Sem)

Editorial Reviews

"Like the shot heard round the world, Dan Sem fires a bold and brave wake-up message that every American needs to hear. Addressing the biggest problem the U.S. economy faces -- the excessive, burdensome cost of healthcare -- Sem delivers a voice of sanity and reason amid the corrupt and needlessly complex. He not only exposes the oppressive healthcare cartel and their unchecked greed, but, more important, also provides the rest of us a nonpartisan path out, one paved with price transparency and healthy competition, and lit with a healthy dose of sunshine. "Purple Solutions" advances a healthcare revolution whose time is now."

- Cynthia A. Fisher, Life sciences entrepreneur and Founder & Chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org

"Purple Solutions provides the most substantive account of what is ailing our country's healthcare system, as well as real-world solutions to the maladies it reveals. This insightful view of a multi-faceted problem will be relevant to a broad group of stakeholders, including healthcare administrators, the health-insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Congress, lawyers, lobbyists, physicians, and patients. As healthcare will be hotly debated during the runup to the 2020 presidential election, we cannot ignore this acute crisis. While every subject seems to be politicized lately, our broken healthcare system is neither a Republican nor a Democratic issue. It is an American issue, which is tackled brilliantly in this important book."

- Bhupendra O. Khatri, MD, FAAN, author of Healing the Soul & Healthcare 911

"If you want to be infuriated, this is the book for you. The chapter on PBM sleight-of-hand alone is worth the price of admission. They end up making more money than the manufacturers, without actually doing anything. Nice work if you can get it...and they have."

- Al Lewis, CEO, Quizzify and author of Why Nobody Believes the Numbers and Cracking Health Costs

"America's healthcare debate has long been a red-versus-blue affair, focused on how we pay for care rather than on how we produce care. This debate has left little room for bipartisan compromise. In this book, twenty authors suggest ways to blend red and blue ideas into bipartisan purple solutions. Numerous chapters, including mine, focus on production (the delivery system) rather than payments (the insurance system). But the common thread throughout is the search for solutions that don't necessarily split along party lines."

- Robert Graboyes, Senior Research Fellow, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University

"Private companies have adopted many pragmatic solutions to lower health costs. If adopted broadly, the nation could afford universal coverage. This book shows the way."

- John Torinus, author of The Grassroots Health Care Revolution and The Company That Save Healthcare

"These wide-ranging essays propose pragmatic answers to the broad array of dysfunction, perverse incentives, and waste afflicting American health care. Though grounded in market understanding, the authors look for sensible middle approaches to achieving the objectives of universal coverage and high quality, patient-responsive care."

- David Goldhill, author of Catastrophic Care

From the Publisher