Three Books on the High Cost of Healthcare

Dory started a lively discussion on the high cost of healthcare by recommending the book, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father--and How We Can Fix It. This book blames high cost on the lack of market forces. While the author makes a good case, there is still some question if market forces work on life-or-death situations. But there are many situations in which there is time to consider treatment options. One situation is the diagnosis of heathy people with potential health problems, even though no symptoms have yet occurred. This is covered in another book mentioned in today's meeting, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health. Both books have drawn attention due the Time magazine article, Bitter Pill, by Steve Brill which was widely covered by mainstream media.

So why did the high cost of healthcare received so little attention during the Obama Care legislation? There was actually a popular book,  Money-Driven Medicine, which was release in March 2009 just in time for the healthcare debate which followed. There was a grassroots movement which tried to call attention to the cost issues raised in the book. A movie was released with the same name. There is still an active website, http://moneydrivenmedicine.org, where you can view clips of the movie. 

Maybe  Obama wanted to tackle one villain at a time. Rather than going after all the healthcare problems, he chose to focus first on the Insurance. Obama had always said that his bill was just a start. Maybe the nation is now ready for the next step, but with the gridlock in Washington, it is unlikely anything will be done soon.