The American health care industry has undergone such dizzying transformations since the 1960s that many patients have lost confidence in a system they find too impersonal and ineffectual. Is their distrust justified and can confidence be restored? David Dranove, a leading health care economist, tackles these and other key questions in the first major economic and historical investigation of the field. Focusing on the doctor-patient relationship, he begins with the era of the independently practicing physician--epitomized by Marcus Welby, the beloved father figure/doctor in the 1960s television show of the same name--who disappeared with the growth of managed care. Dranove guides consumers in understanding the rapid developments of the health care industry and offers timely policy recommendations for reforming managed care as well as advice for patients making health care decisions. The book covers everything from start-up troubles with the first managed care organizations to attempts at government regulation to the mergers and quality control issues facing MCOs today. It also reflects on how difficult it is for patients to shop for medical care. Up until the 1970s, patients looked to autonomous physicians for recommendations on procedures and hospitals--a process that relied more on the patient's trust of the physician than on facts, and resulted in skyrocketing medical costs. Newly emerging MCOs have tried to solve the shopping problem by tracking the performance of care providers while obtaining discounts for their clients. Many observers accuse MCOs of caring more about cost than quality, and argue for government regulation. Dranove, however, believes that market forces can eventually achieve quality care and cost control. But first, MCOs must improve their ways of measuring provider performance, medical records must be made more complete and accessible (a task that need not compromise patient confidentiality), and patients must be willing to seek and act on information about the best care available. Dranove argues that patients can regain confidence in the medical system, and even come to trust MCOs, but they will need to rely on both their individual doctors and their own consumer awareness.

The American health care industry has undergone such dizzying transformations since the 1960s that many patients have lost confidence in a system they find too impersonal and ineffectual. Is their distrust justified and can confidence be restored? David Dranove, a leading health care economist, tackles these and other key questions in the first major economic and historical investigation of the field. Focusing on the doctor-patient relationship, he begins with the era of the independently practicing physician--epitomized by Marcus Welby, the beloved father figure/doctor in the 1960s television show of the same name--who disappeared with the growth of managed care. Dranove guides consumers in understanding the rapid developments of the health care industry and offers timely policy recommendations for reforming managed care as well as advice for patients making health care decisions. The book covers everything from start-up troubles with the first managed care organizations to attempts at government regulation to the mergers and quality control issues facing MCOs today. It also reflects on how difficult it is for patients to shop for medical care. Up until the 1970s, patients looked to autonomous physicians for recommendations on procedures and hospitals--a process that relied more on the patient's trust of the physician than on facts, and resulted in skyrocketing medical costs. Newly emerging MCOs have tried to solve the shopping problem by tracking the performance of care providers while obtaining discounts for their clients. Many observers accuse MCOs of caring more about cost than quality, and argue for government regulation. Dranove, however, believes that market forces can eventually achieve quality care and cost control. But first, MCOs must improve their ways of measuring provider performance, medical records must be made more complete and accessible (a task that need not compromise patient confidentiality), and patients must be willing to seek and act on information about the best care available. Dranove argues that patients can regain confidence in the medical system, and even come to trust MCOs, but they will need to rely on both their individual doctors and their own consumer awareness.

The U.S. healthcare system is in critical condition--but this should come as a surprise to no one. Yet until now the solutions proposed have been unworkable, pie-in-the-sky plans that have had little chance of becoming law and even less of succeeding. In Code Red, David Dranove, one of the nation's leading experts on the economics of healthcare, proposes a set of feasible solutions that address access, efficiency, and quality. Dranove offers pragmatic remedies, some of them controversial, all of them crucially needed to restore the system to vitality. He pays special attention to the plight of the uninsured, and proposes a new direction that promises to make premier healthcare for all Americans a national reality. Setting his story against the backdrop of healthcare in the United States from the early twentieth century to the present day, he reveals why a century of private and public sector efforts to reform the ailing system have largely failed. He draws on insights from economics to diagnose the root causes of rising costs and diminishing access to quality care, such as inadequate information, perverse incentives, and malfunctioning insurance markets. Dranove describes the ongoing efforts to revive the system--including the rise of consumerism, the quality movement, and initiatives to expand access--and argues that these efforts are doomed to fail without more fundamental, systemic, market-based reforms. Code Red lays the foundation for a thriving healthcare system and is indispensable for anyone trying to make sense of the thorny issues of healthcare reform.

From the beginning of mankind, health and health issues have played a major role in life, but the issues and care have evolved enormously from the time when the first settlers set foot in America to the present. In The History and Evolution of Healthcare in America, author Thomas W. Loker provides a historical perspective on the state of healthcare and offers fresh views on changes to Obamacare. Insightful and thorough, The History and Evolution of Healthcare in America offers a look at - what healthcare was like at the birth of the nation; - how the practice of providing healthcare has changed for both caregivers and receivers; - why the process has become so corrupt and expensive; - what needs to happen to provide both choice and effective and efficient care for all; - where we need to most focus efforts to get the biggest change; - what is needed to get control over this out-of-control situation. Loker narrates a journey through the history of American healthcare-where we've been, how we arrived where we are today, and determine where we might need to go tomorrow. The history illustrates how parts of the problem have been solved in the past and helps us understand what might be necessary to solve our remaining problems in the future.

Selected by the Association of University Programs in Health Administration for the Bugbee-Falk Book Award Is the health sector a curse or a blessing? The American health sector now accounts for a fifth of the economy. American healthcare spending per capita far exceeds that of other developed countries. Yet our health, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality, is poor by comparison with the developed world. Other measures of quality including hospital-acquired infection are too common. Healthcare costs financially cripple households despite advances associated with the Affordable Care Act. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the American healthcare system and support for more change. It is also the case that the health sector has been a leader in the evolution of the American economy. Economic development is driven by innovative technology. We tend to applaud new technology and the improvement it brings to our lives. Important recent technologies often grow rapidly and faster than the wider economy. This leads to larger shares of the economy. Yet there is considerable apprehension about costs and economic impact of health spending. This book details important health sector institutions and uniquely, explores linkages between healthcare and broader economic growth. The book addresses asymmetric information between providers and consumers as well as between insurers and beneficiaries. There is a focus on monopoly power in labor markets which contributes to inefficiencies in the system. The author also discusses cost-effectiveness and allocative efficiency as well as emphasizing productivity and its relationship to the wider economy.

Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it.

Americans are accustomed to anecdotal evidence of the health care crisis. Yet, personal or local stories do not provide a comprehensive nationwide picture of our access to health care. Now, this book offers the long-awaited health equivalent of national economic indicators. This useful volume defines a set of national objectives and identifies indicatorsâ€"measures of utilization and outcomeâ€"that can "sense" when and where problems occur in accessing specific health care services. Using the indicators, the committee presents significant conclusions about the situation today, examining the relationships between access to care and factors such as income, race, ethnic origin, and location. The committee offers recommendations to federal, state, and local agencies for improving data collection and monitoring. This highly readable and well-organized volume will be essential for policymakers, public health officials, insurance companies, hospitals, physicians and nurses, and interested individuals.

Considers why U.S. society is believed to be less healthy in spite of disproportionate spending on health care, identifying a lack of social services, outdated care allocations, and a resistance to government programs as the problem.

Drawing on the work of the Roundtable on Evidence-Based Medicine, the 2007 IOM Annual Meeting assessed some of the rapidly occurring changes in health care related to new diagnostic and treatment tools, emerging genetic insights, the developments in information technology, and healthcare costs, and discussed the need for a stronger focus on evidence to ensure that the promise of scientific discovery and technological innovation is efficiently captured to provide the right care for the right patient at the right time. As new discoveries continue to expand the universe of medical interventions, treatments, and methods of care, the need for a more systematic approach to evidence development and application becomes increasingly critical. Without better information about the effectiveness of different treatment options, the resulting uncertainty can lead to the delivery of services that may be unnecessary, unproven, or even harmful. Improving the evidence-base for medicine holds great potential to increase the quality and efficiency of medical care. The Annual Meeting, held on October 8, 2007, brought together many of the nation's leading authorities on various aspects of the issues - both challenges and opportunities - to present their perspectives and engage in discussion with the IOM membership.

How did the United States come to have its distinctive workplace-based health insurance system? Why did Progressive initiatives to establish a government system fail? This book explores the history of health insurance in the United States from its roots in the nineteenth-century sickness funds offered by industrial employers, fraternal organizations, and labor unions to the rise of such group plans as Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the mid-twentieth century. Historians generally view the failure to establish universal health insurance during the first half of the twentieth century as an indicator of the political clout of insurers, employers, unions, and physicians who thwarted Progressive efforts. But the explanation is actually simpler, John Murray contends in this book. Careful analysis of the workings of industrial sickness funds suggests that workers rejected plans for compulsory state insurance because they were largely content with existing private plans. Murray revises our understanding of the evolution of health care insurance in the United States and discusses the implications of that history for the ongoing debates of today.