Location:Home : GPS Books : Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer
Product Description What would real healthcare reform look like? And how can everyday Americans trump big money and put healthcare back on track? Howard Dean speaks out."The success of healthcare reform legislation rises and falls on whether the American public is allowed to opt into a universally available public healthcare program, like Medicare, or not. If Congress issues a bill that gives Americans a public option, then there will be real healthcare reform. If not, we could be back fighting about it for another 20 years before anybody tries again."--Howard DeanAmericans have pondered how to reform healthcare since the days of Harry Truman. But, for most Americans, little has changedexcept that healthcare costs have soared, health insurance companies have grown richer, and, today, even those Americans who pay dearly for health insurance frequently find that their policies dont adequately cover them when they need their coverage most.Something has got to give. In his bold, new book, Howard Dean-the physician and former governor widely credited for reviving the Democratic Party after the 2004 elections-tells Americans what needs to be done to successfully reform healthcare. One key, he writes, is to offer Americans the option to participate in a public healthcare program, much like Medicare. "America has had 'socialized' medicine since 1964," says Dean. "Its called Medicare; it covers every American over 65, and the majority of them are happy with the program. The rest of America deserves a similar option."In this straight-talking guide to rising above today's healthcare crisis, Dean spells out:
What Obama's healthcare plan is all about
How other countries handle healthcare
Which special interests are standing in the way of progress and why
How healthcare reform will help American businesses prosper
Why Americans need choice--between private or public health coverage
Millions of Americans lack health insurance; millions more pay for coverage that doesn't protect them from serious illness; and the status quo leaves Americans at the mercy of corporate interests. In this persuasive argument from a passionate political strategist, Americans learn how to take back the healthcare reins.
Excellent primer on the healthcare reform debateFebruary 22, 2010 Gymsho(Fitchburg, WI) Very readable. This was a good introduction to the issues surrounding the heatlh insurance reform debate.
An unbelievably disappointing, incredibly-biased, extremely liberal-left position paperDecember 29, 2009 Proud Mommy & Just Your Average Gal(in the beautiful season-changing Midwest, USA) 0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wow, what a disappointment. I put off doing this review for a couple of months because I was so disgusted with this book. I bought this book because I knew that Howard Dean was a doctor, and I thought that his perspective and recommendations would be valuable in the current health care debate. I was expecting an unbiased evaluation of health care reform with a perspective from a doctor on what's best all-around, for us as patients and as Americans. Instead, I got an extremely leftist, super-liberal book that is so obviously NOT an unbiased perspective from a doctor who is "in the trenches," that I had to force myself to even finish it. (which I did, because I wanted to give it a really fair opportunity to change the impression I got from the first few chapters of it).
Since reading this book, I have paid more attention to Howard Dean and his opinions in the news, and I find him extreme and really over-the-edge. I won't go any further into my own political feelings here, but as a reviewer I want you to realize before purchasing that if you are buying this book you should know ahead of time that it is written as a politician and left-winger first, and a doctor second (or third or fourth or whatever).
So if you lean left, you'll love it. If you are in the center or right and looking for an unbiased perspective of a doctor on what's best for America and health care, you will have to find it somewhere else because it is definitely not in Howard Dean's book.
Yup, That right.November 5, 2009 Stephanie Sullivan(Boston, MA USA) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Howard Dean should keep shouting it out. I think he sums up the situation clearly and concisely. He presents a rational approach for resolving the health care crisis we now face in the United States.
A Great Presentation on What is Needed in Health CareSeptember 24, 2009 LEON L CZIKOWSKY(Harrisburg, Pa USA) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Howard Dean makes an easily understood presentation of the crisis in health care and what he proposed will resolves these problems. Dean was distressed to see how often health care insurers stopped covering someone once they became ill. He notes the Congressional Budget Office calculates that, in the individual health care insurance market, that 29% of premiums pay for administrative costs. He found most insurance companies use of to half their expense on executive salaries, administrative costs, and profits to shareholders.
Dean notes 47 million do not have health care insurance. 25 million have such insurance but can't afford their share of the costs to see a doctor. Many face either bankrupting themselves to pay for health care or doing without.
Many states have weak laws regarding health insurance, which is regulated by state laws. Many states allow premiums to increase drastically. Many allow coverage to be denied to health conditions that arise later, sometimes upon review and sometimes even more than a year after purchasing the policy. Some policies only provide minimal coverage, such as up to $50,000 in lifetime costs or $1,000 for hospitalization. It is hard for the public to understand health care insurance policies. They are deliberately written in technical language the public finds trouble understanding.
Dean notes that Canada's national health care system attracts businesses to locate there. Establishing instead in the U.S. entails employers making large enough health care expenditures that it is cheaper for them to locate in Canada.
Health care insurance should be available to everyone, Dean writes. It should be affordable, rather than something that contributes towards half of all bankruptcies. Health care should stay with an individual and not be dropped when a person changes jobs. People should be allowed to keep their existing coverage, if they wish. A tax credit should be provided to small businesses to help them pay for their required health care insurance. Our efforts on disease prevention, health care research, and health information technologies should be increased.
A public insurance option would have lower administrative costs. It would drive private insurance to compete by lowering their expenses and their costs to customers. This system would preserve the wishes of Americans consumers to have choices.
Americans deserve informed choices. This is particularly important when it comes to the public being able to understand their choice on pharmaceuticals and how different brands of similar drugs work and what their possible side effects are.
Dean states a 5% gas tax would pay for health care insurance costs. The costs of the public insurance could by transferring excessive Medicare payments to the public insurance system.
Private insurance and business interests are fighting to protect their own interests against health care reform that would be in the public's interest.
The U.S. spends $5,711 per capita on health care compared to $2,989 in Canada and $2,317 in Great Britain. The U.S. spends 15.2% of its GDP on health care compared to 9.9% in Canada and 7.8% in Great Britain.
DEAN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS - he's been there, done thatSeptember 20, 2009 Ben Franklin(Oregon) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dean, as governor, began what you would call today a "public option" in Vermont, back in the 1990s. The economy boomed and insurance companies did not go out of business.
Besides that, Dean reviews the health care systems of many European countries and how they do single payer, and a number of other combinations of private and public systems. He follows their past evolution into universal care. There is a road map where we are going in this book.
Other subjects, facts, statistics to spike the lies and misinformation on this subject such as this on tort reform:
"The total cost of malpractice constitutes just 0.46 percent of total healthcare expenditures, and settlements have grown modestly with inflation. While approximately 98,000 people die each year from negligent treatment, a mere 2 percent (2%) sue their physicians. As health policy analyst Maggie Mahar [author of "Money-Driven Medicine"] observed, 'A very small group of doctors are losing or settling malpractice lawsuits, but they are losing big.' Between 1990 and 2002, '5.2 percent (5.2%) of doctors were responsible for 55 percent (55%)' of all malpractice payouts." p.90-91
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