The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T. R. Reid "The Healing of America" is a must-read book that seeks a cure for our ailing, unfair, and absurdly expensive health care system. Longtime correspondent for the Washington Post, commentator and accomplished author T.R. Reid masterfully goes on a global quest to find the answers to our failing system while simultaneously seeking a cure to his ailing right shoulder. This is one of the most enlightening books I have read on this highly-debated an incendiary topic. This excellent, informative 303-page book includes the following thirteen chapters: 1. A Quest for Two Cures, 2. Different Models, Common Principles, 3. The Paradox, 4. France: The Vital Card, 5. Germany: "Applied Christianity", 6. Japan: Bismarck on Rice, 7. The UK: Universal Coverage, No Bills, 8. Canada: "Sorry to Keep You Waiting", 9. Out of Pocket, 10. Too Big to Change?, 11. An Apple a Day, 12. The First Question, and 13. Major Surgery. Positives: 1. A well-written, well-researched book on a highly-debated topic. Reid goes over the positives and negatives of each system in an accessible, even-handed, engaging manner. 2. Good use of charts to complement excellent narration. 3. Does a fantastic job of going over the four main health care models in existence around the world and some of it most popular combinations: Bismarck, Beveridge, National health insurance, and out-of-pocket. 4. Makes clear what the American health care system basically is throughout the book. "Americans generally recognize now that our nation's health care system has become excessively expensive, ineffective, and unjust." 5. Succeeds in developing a compelling thesis and works his way to superior solutions. "The thesis of this book is that we can find cost-effective ways to cover every American by borrowing ideas from foreign models of health care." 6. Makes it plainly clear. The American health care system is in reality a health care market. "For anyone with the money--or the insurance policy--to pay for it, American medical treatment ranks with the best on earth." 7. "The shortcomings of our system can be grouped into three basic problems: coverage, quality, and cost." Reid consistently references our system as it compares and relates to other systems around the globe. "All the other developed countries see to it that every person has a right to health care when necessary. We don't." 8. Some statements just speak for themselves and are a recurring theme. "The United States is the only developed country that relies on profit-making health insurance companies to pay for essential and elective care." And as a result..."The United States is the only developed country that allows insurance companies to refuse coverage to people for fear that they might get sick." 9. Introduces quirks in the American system that leads to unnecessary complexity, "The presence of countless different payers and fee schedules drives another unique feature of American health care: the cost shift." "The administrative patchwork makes everything about American medicine more complex and more expensive than it needs to be." 10. France is number one? "Whether or not you agree with the World Health Organization's conclusion that France has the world's No. 1 health care system, all the statistics on national health suggest that France rates near the top of the global rankings. France does a better job than almost any other country both in encouraging health and in treating those who get sick." 11. The three fundamental ways that the German health care system is different than ours. 12. The most prodigious consumer of health care, how their system works. "The Japanese system, in short, provides care to every resident of Japan, for minimal fees, with no waiting lists--and excellent results. This is a good deal for the people of Japan, and they take advantage of it, flocking to clinics and hospitals." 13. A comprehensive look at the British National Health Service system. "Free nationalized health care is such a basic part of British life today that not even the iron lady of British conservatism, Margaret Thatcher, ever dared take on the NHS." 14. The Canadian system. "The most distinctive lesson we could take, though, from Canada's health care system is the key point of the Tommy Douglas saga: Universal health care coverage doesn't have to start at the national level." 15. The reality of the out-of-pocket system. "This pattern also holds in the only wealthy country that uses the Out-of-Pocket Model for a significant portion of the population: the United States." 16. Great examples of countries that successfully overhauled their systems. "In the course of my global quest, I visited two countries that completely revamped their national health care arrangements: Switzerland and Taiwan. Both countries made a national commitment to provide health care to all. Having committed to universal coverage, both democracies were able to bring about the changes necessary to get there." 17. "THERE ARE TWO BASIC APPROACHES to the job of keeping people healthy: the Public Health Model and the Medical Model." How they differ. 18. Understanding the basic ethical questions of health care. "Your ethics, your sense of justice, determine how you distribute goods and services, including health care." 19. The five common American myths about health care systems overseas. 20. Includes an afterword chapter that briefly highlights "Obamacare". Negatives: 1. It can get a little confusing. Jumping back and forth from different health care models is a little confusing. A reference table summarizing the four models and countries that apply such models would have been helpful. 2. No formal bibliography. 3. Some minor formatting issues visible in the Kindle but nothing major. A misspell (entities) here and a repeated word there (research). In summary, this is one of the most enlightening books I have ever read. T.R. Reid does an outstanding job of educating the public on the four main health care arrangements around the world. He wisely uses his own ailing shoulder as a reference from which to compare how the various health care systems around the world (France, Germany, Japan, U.K., Canada, Switzerland, Taiwan and India) would address the issue. Most importantly, his global quest is a very successful one as it results in comprehensive answers on how to improve our American health care system. Outstanding book, get it! Further recommendations: " How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America " by Otis Webb Brawley, M.D. with Paul Goldberg, " Landmark: The Inside Story of America's New Health-Care Law-The Affordable Care Act-and What It Means for Us All (Publicaffairs Reports) " by The Washington Post Staff, " Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer " by Shannon Brownlee, " Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health " by H. Gilbert Welsh, " Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine " by John Abramson, " Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients " by Ray Moynihan, " Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care " by Marty Makary, M.D., " Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father--and How We Can Fix It " by David Goldhill, " Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price " by Jonathan Cohn, " Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science " by Atul Gawande, and "Every Patient Tells A Story" by Lisa Sanders, M.D..

"The Healing of America" is a really great book. My parents are very right-wing, and I've been looking for an approachable book about universal health care for them to read. This was exactly what I was looking for. The presentation is clean and smooth, and it's very easy to read. What's more, even though "The Healing of America" is about universal health care, it's not generally political. It was really refreshing. I strongly recommend this book if you're interested in health care systems but haven't done that much reading on the topic yet. The motivation Reid gives for his comparative analysis of various health care systems is a "bum" shoulder he developed due to prior treatment when he was in the military. Normally, I don't care for antidotal information (because stories don't necessary provide insight into general trends), but his motivation isn't pushed too far. So the antidote simply provided a good catalyst to keep the book moving in a natural feeling way. I appreciated that the focus was on other countries, as opposed to just the U.S. Too often, American politics is a bit too narcissistic, and rarely integrates information about other countries into the national dialog. The irony is that America's failure to examine other countries is actually making it weaker. The recent health care debate is an excellent example. It was rare that one would hear anything about other countries' health care systems, especially on the right. And what's more, a lot of what you would hear wasn't true. One counter example, though, is the long wait times in Canada for non-emergency care (Reid is particularly hard on their system). However, he is pretty positive about universal health care in general. Make no mistake: This book is advocating for universal health care, though it's neutral about how the system should be structured. Reid makes sure to mention that all of these systems are very cheap compared to the U.S.'s. Another thing pushed is that in most countries Reid visited the wait times are actually comparable to the U.S.'s. It was actually news to me that the U.K.'s health care system is not a counter example, a revelation most liberals probably don't even know. Reid says that the long wait times in the U.K. are a thing of the past, thanks to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's reforms. Reid also stresses that universal health care systems are usually very popular. I wonder whether that will ever be the case in the U.S.; Reid gives me hope. The book was also updated to include some information about the U.S.'s recent health care reform. There's even a short section at the end devoted specifically to the topic. The information isn't a focus of "The Healing of America," and it's not necessarily even needed, but it helps to make the book feel less dated. Reid isn't particularly impressed with the reform, but I get the sense that he thinks it's a step in the right direction. As I've said before, this is a very good book. It doesn't go into too much depth, so I don't recommend it if you've already studied universal health care systems extensively. But if you're interested and are looking for a good introductory book, then this is for you.

著者はワシントンポストの記者で、家族で日本に住んでいた経験もあります。昨今の医療崩壊、福島県の大野病院の医師の訴追問題、患者受け入れ不能（マスコミいうところの「たらいまわし」）問題など、論じられていない部分もありますが、日本の中にいるだけでは気づかない点を米国人の目から指摘してくれている点で、読む価値があると思います。 著者は、日本では、最高の医療水準を、最高のアクセスで、最低の料金で受けられることを何度も強調して述べています。そして、そのしわ寄せを受けているのが医者と病院であり、瀕死の状態であることを述べています。 日本のことを書いた部分の最後を引用しておきます。 Our country（米国のこと）spends too much on health care and gets too little in return; Japan gets lots of health care but probably spends too little to make its exellent system sustainable. このように、せっかく素晴らしいシステムなのに、医療にかける金をけちっていたらシステムが持続可能じゃなくなるといっています。そして、日本の医療従事者と病院については以下のように述べています。 THE BIG LOSERS in the Japanese health care system, the people who come out worst, are the providers of health care--doctors, nurses, therapists, and hospitals.

I thought the book a little bit interesting but I really am enjoying the details and the message it conveys.

A very honest book about healthcare services around the world. Despite the somewhat condescending attitude towards Indian healthcare delivery system, the author finds that his own quest for relief of his stiff shoulder ends in Kerala, India! But the analytical approach to healthcare delivery in various countries is of immense value to anyone trying to make sense of the myriad ways in which healthcare is approached in different countries. The book has plenty of useful healthcare indices for students of Health Economics. The narrative is lucid and very personal. Certainly worth a read for anyone who cares about healthcare.

Eventualmente todos enfermamos... Gran aprendizaje de los sistemas médicos y lecciones aprendidades de como otros paises hacen funcionar las cosas

On page 164, the author T.R.Reid says that, “.....many Americans have concluded that health care reform is beyond the power of a Democratic government.” which sets the fatalistic tone of the book. He provides an interesting round the world tour of national health care systems (and sometimes non-systems) showing for example how the French “Carte Vitale” carries a citizens entire medical history – cutting out a mass of expensive medical bureaucracy. The doctor simply slips the card into a reader and has access the patients full history right on the screen. In Canada a single payer national (or provincial) system allows the government to tightly control all medical cost across the country, with the result that Canadians have the same average level of health as Americans at about half the cost per person. Reid continues with the examples, making it clear that US healthcare is a disaster on any kind of cost/benefit basis, and what is even worse, he shows the US even failing on basic measures of healthcare output such as infant mortality or the DALE rating (How long an average person can expect to live without serious illness or disability) with the US in 24th position behind most developed countries – despite its sky-high spending. He quotes Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution who said, “I look at the U.S. healthcare program and see an administrative monstrosity....”, with the reality being a fine collection of medically related special interests snuggly hooked into, and exploiting a corrupt political process. Like much else to do with the United States government, special interests are looting and impoverishing the country. So maybe American healthcare is just one example among many, as a well connected élite live in a bubble with world-class service, while the great unwashed (general public) get on a best they can, i.e. T.R.Reid's pessimism is fully justified.