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

Abstract

The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care By T.R. Reid. , The Penguin Press, 2009, Hardcover 288 pp., $25.95, ISBN-10:1594202346 The health-care delivery system in the USA is in trouble. Despite this being recognized by the vast majority of the American public (a CNN poll in August 2009 found that 91% of respondents felt that the American health-care system was in need of ‘major’ or ‘some’ reform), various interest groups with significant political power and a strong economic stake in maintaining the status quo , as well as a historic popular mistrust of big government, have succeeded thus far in stymieing efforts to extend coverage to a broader segment of the American public while trying to contain or even reduce costs. This time, however, it may be different. With the Obama administration's attempts to bring about health-care delivery reform in the USA, this subject has risen to the forefront of American public debate. It seems that no matter where one turns these days, one comes across another article, report or book about the woeful state of the American health-care delivery system. Depending upon the author(s)' point of view, insurance companies, physicians, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, hospital administrators and/or malpractice lawyers (variously described as ‘greedy’ and ‘heartless’) are to blame for the current sorry state of affairs. Suggestions on how to remedy the situation are not lacking either, and these differ significantly depending upon their proponents' underlying ideological world view, which colors both their understanding of how the American health-care delivery system arrived at this point, as well as their conviction of what the USA as a society should strive to become. In this very well-written and thought-provoking book, T.R. Reid, a journalist for American National Public Radio and the Washington Post set out to examine how the health-care systems …