Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business--and Bad MedicineAward-winning journalists expose the horrific practices within America’s health care system, profiling patients and doctors and offering startling personal stories to illuminate what’s gone wrong. “Every American ought to read this book.”—The Plain Dealer Tens of millions of people with inadequate or no medical coverage . . . dirty examination and operating rooms in doctors’ offices and hospitals . . . more people killed by mistakes than by many diseases. This may sound like the predicament of a failed state, but this is America’s health care reality today. The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other nation, yet benefits are shrinking and life expectancy here is shorter than in countries that spend significantly less. Meanwhile, HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains reap tremendous profits, as our elected politicians, beholden to these same companies, enact piecemeal measures that lead to needless deaths, refusing to come to grips with a system on the verge of collapse. A superb investigative work that is enormously compelling and addresses the concerns of every American, Critical Condition offers an insightful prescription for getting the system back on the right track. |
Contents
| 1 | |
Wall Street Medicine | 75 |
The Labyrinth of Care | 155 |
THE WRONG JOBS | 170 |
ONLINE AND OFFSHORE | 189 |
THE TV AD BLITZ | 203 |
THE CELEBRITY PITCH | 223 |
Medicine in the Media | 251 |
Other editions - View all
Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business--and Bad ... Donald L. Barlett,James B. Steele No preview available - 2005 |
Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business--and Bad ... Donald L. Barlett,James B. Steele No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
administrative advertising American bankruptcy Barbakow began bill California call center call-center Canada cancer charged Chaudhuri claims clinic company's condition consumers corporate costs Court coverage death disease doctors dollars downcoding drug companies employees federal fen-phen filed for-profit guidelines health care health care system health insurance health plans HealthSouth heart HMOs hospital investors Kaiser KPC patients KPC's later Listerine Lorello Medicaid Medical Center Medicare medicine MedPartners ment Milliman million months National Medical Enterprises Neurontin newspaper nurses off-label Oldham operations paid pain Parke-Davis payments percent Pfizer pharmaceutical companies physicians pills PPMs practices Pravachol prescribed prescription drugs procedures profit records Redding Medical Center reimbursements reports revenue Rezulin says Scrushy Serzone Smith Barney spending surgeon surgery Tenet tests tion told treat treatment UBS Warburg uninsured United Utterback Wall Street warning workers
Popular passages
Page 3 - Politicians love to say that the United States has the best health care system in the world.