Waiting on Wednesday: August 25, 2010

The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid

 

From Amazon.com: 

Washington Post correspondent Reid (The United States of Europe) explores health-care systems around the world in an effort to understand why the U.S. remains the only first world nation to refuse its citizens universal health care. Neither financial prudence nor concern for the commonweal explains the American position, according to Reid, whose findings divulge that the U.S. not only spends more money on health care than any other nation but also leaves 45 million residents uninsured, allowing about 22,000 to die from easily treatable diseases. Seeking treatment for the flareup of an old shoulder injury, he visits doctors in the U.S., France, Germany, Japan and England—with a stint in an Ayurvedic clinic in India—in a quest for treatment that dovetails with his search for a cure for America's health-care crisis, a narrative device that sometimes feels contrived, but allows him valuable firsthand experience. For all the scope of his research and his ability to mint neat rebuttals to the common American misconception that universal health care is socialized medicine, Reid neglects to address the elephant in the room: just how are we to sell these changes to the mighty providers and insurers?

Although much of the furor that surrounded the health care debate earlier this year has settled down, we have yet to address many of the tough choices and decisions about health care in this country.  I think the author's approach of trying to access treatment for a shoulder injury in 6 countries is an interesting approach to this dialogue.  I had put this book onto my TBR when it first released in HB and am excited to see that is now out in paperback (Paperback releases on Aug 31, 2010)

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine