Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
This is, quite simply, an outstanding book. Health care is an incredibly complex topic, but Goldhill's approach is to keep a laser focus on incentives. His main theme is how we misguidedly treat healthcare as a unique industry, and disassociate the consumer (and his/her spending choices) from the providers, who then have no incentive to improve.The author is a Democrat, but began to examine his predilections after watching the death of his father (who walked into a highly regarded hospital with pneumonia, and 5 weeks later was dead). He does not fall prey to the simplifications or misguided motivations of either "side" of the inter-party debate. Indeed, his final policy recommendations are a unique combination of elements.Among the specific thematic points:- How ridiculous it is to call what we have "insurance" (which, by definition, is a distribution of risk across a population) - when 100% of "insured" people bear costs- How almost all policy decisions seem to be based on a fix lump of "health care needs" rather than contemplating how the policy will adjust needs to match incentives. Thus, over time, costs will grow to infinity because our approach (and those of most other countries, including those with single-payer systems) guarantees that care costs will grow because incentives are there for them to do so...period. Neither insurance companies nor government is a good steward of cost control- How much we (each) spend on health care over our lives, through premiums, taxes, etc. It totals, for the majority of us, to be multiple millions. Anyway, the concepts are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that, in an average non-fiction book, I probably highlight about 30 passages as being particularly striking or meaningful. In this book, that total is in the 100s.If you really, really want to catch up with what is broken in our system, and how most of us choose to look the other way and/or over-simplify the answer, read this book. It takes attention and focus, but it will be worth it, and you will be much more informed in the inevitable continued debates to come. This is a well written book. It attempts to tackle the reality of our healthcare system in a way that sheds light on the misinformation fed to consumers and misconceptions people have. It blows Obamacare out of the water with analysis instead of liberal rhetoric. The bottom line here is that the country is screwed if we don't make drastic changes to spending and the moral hazards doctors create by tacking on additional procedures just because health insurance will cover it. The author postulates that the patient has no say in the economics of healthcare. The customer is the insurance company and typically the insurance company's customer is the employer of the patient. This seems to back up my theory that human beings are second class citizens behind corporate entities in this country. It is time to take back this country, our health and our dignity from those who would do anything for money. Goldhill makes a statement which indicates that the social function of profit is to send signals to players in the market, not to get rich. This is an idea that American capitalists seem to have forgotten long ago.
What do You think about Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It (2013)?
giving me completely new insights on health care system.
—Mr_Fusspot
A complicated book about a complicated subject.
—Andy74
Nothing new to me. Good explanation of ACA
—Luiza1
