The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care [Hardcover] Author: T. R. Reid | Language: English | ISBN:
1594202346 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Bestselling author T. R. Reid guides a whirlwind tour of successful health care systems worldwide, revealing possible paths toward U.S. reform. In
The Healing of America, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid shows how all the other industrialized democracies have achieved something the United States can’t seem to do: provide health care for everybody at a reasonable cost.
In his global quest to find a possible prescription, Reid visits wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies like our own—including France, Germany, Japan, the U.K., and Canada—where he finds inspiration in example. Reid shares evidence from doctors, government officials, health care experts, and patients the world over, finding that foreign health care systems give everybody quality care at an affordable cost. And that dreaded monster “socialized medicine” turns out to be a myth. Many developed countries provide universal coverage with private doctors, private hospitals, and private insurance.
In addition to long-established systems, Reid also studies countries that have carried out major health care reform. The first question facing these countries—and the United States, for that matter—is an ethical issue: Is health care a human right? Most countries have already answered with a resolute yes, leaving the United States in the murky moral backwater with nations we typically think of as far less just than our own.
The Healing of America lays bare the moral question at the heart of our troubled system, dissecting the misleading rhetoric surrounding the health care debate. Reid sees problems elsewhere, too: He finds poorly paid doctors in Japan, endless lines in Canada, mistreated patients in Britain, spartan facilities in France. Still, all the other rich countries operate at a lower cost, produce better health statistics, and cover everybody. In the end,
The Healing of America is a good news book: It finds models around the world that Americans can borrow to guarantee health care for everybody who needs it.
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- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: The Penguin Press; 1 edition (August 20, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1594202346
- ISBN-13: 978-1594202346
- Product Dimensions: 1 x 6.1 x 9.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
In `The Healing of America' TR Reid gives a tutorial on the basic types of health care systems in place around the world, and then tries to give an evenhanded analysis of what works in these systems and what doesn't. What gives the book its teeth though is his first-hand experience of health care systems in six different countries. In his quest, Reid brings a bum shoulder to these countries to find, as he puts it, `two cures': one for himself and one for the US health care system.
There's no question something needs to be done to fix the US health care system. The idea that the richest and most technologically-advanced country would let people die because they can't get the care they need or go bankrupt because they get sick is absurd. That is why the current debate about health care reform is needed. The problem though is that's it's hard to know what we're looking at when filtered through politicians and the majority of the media coverage. They focus on the extremes, especially those opposed to reform who mischaracterize the systems in other countries as `socialized medicine'. In this context, Reid provides a useful voice to the debate- whether you agree with his prescriptions or not. He de-stigmatizes the systems of other countries and explains why we're not as far removed from them as we think.
He shows us how other countries' systems are different, but also alike. Some `socialist' countries have private insurance and private doctors. In fact, Reid demonstrates how some countries actually have more choice than the US. In Germany for example, one can choose from hundreds of different insurance plans and go to any doctor, whereas US citizens are generally limited to one employer's plan and only `in-network' doctors.
Ever since the PBS documentary mentioned Reid's characterization of the different healthcare systems, I have been waiting anxiously for this book. Was well worth the wait.
The fundamental thesis of the book is that the US healthcare system can and must learn and adapt ideas from various other healthcare systems - the idea is not radical at all. What is unique about this book is that Reid systematically and convincingly disproves the common arguments centered on the notions of "socialized medicine". A sub-text of this thesis is perhaps a bit more novel than his original thesis - US doesn't have a healthcare delivery problem, but has a significant problem financing it. This re-framing of the problem, clearly and deliberately divorcing the clinical resources/processes from the administrative (non-clinical) processes, is very helpful in focusing the arguments Reid wants to make. While one could argue that this re-framing is oversimplification and too biased against payers, it becomes to a open-minded reader that, at least in the US context, it is absolutely critical to view the economics side of healthcare first. Reid convincingly makes an argument that the "capitalistic" idealism US markets crave for and swear for are not channeled appropriately or are in fact, have the wrong incentive structure.
Whether you agree with that viewpoint or not, the detailed global journey of Reid and his quasi-functional shoulder, helps a reader lead a vicarious patient life in a wide variety of settings, some more similar to the US than others. (Having grown up entirely in India, I certainly can relate to and think that the author's portrayal of India's healthcare system is accurate and presented in a matter-of-fact manner).
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