The Truth About Health Care: Why Reform is Not Working in America by David Mechanic

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Bringing decades of experience as an active health policy participant, researcher, teacher, and consultant to the public and private sectors, David Mechanic examines the strengths and weaknesses of health care in the United States. He explains how it has evolved in ways that favor economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. Yet, he also acknowledges that railing against these influences can achieve only so much. Instead, Mechanic suggests changes that may make it possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well-functioning system that better serves the entire population.

Library Journal

The United States spends more per person on healthcare than any other country in the world. Yet much of the assistance provided is low quality, fragmented, and poorly coordinated. Mechanic (director, Inst. for Health, Health Care Policy & Aging Research, Rutgers Univ.) asks, "Why can't America, with its array of resources, sophisticated technologies, superior medical research and educational institutions, and talented health professionals, produce higher quality care and better outcomes?" He addresses this question by first examining such problems as the growing number of uninsured individuals, neglect of long-term care, and frequent occurrence of life-threatening medical errors. Next, he discusses possible solutions to these problems, e.g., greater use of evidence-based medicine, rationing care, and the promotion of improved-quality care. Lastly, he outlines possible ways of restructuring and reforming the nation's healthcare system. Although many of these proposed solutions are broad and general, they appear tenable. Mechanic's insightful, thoroughly researched, and well-written and -organized book would be very useful in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in allied health, medicine, nursing, public health, and sociology. It would also be of interest to informed readers.-Ross Mullner, Sch. of Public Health, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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Table of Contents