Conflicts of interest, misrepresentation of clinical trials,
hospital price-fixing, and massive expenditures for procedures of
dubious efficacy--these and other critical flaws leave little doubt
that the current U.S. health-care system is in need of an overhaul.
In this essential guide, preeminent physician Nortin Hadler urges
American health-care consumers to take time to understand the
existing system and to visualize what the outcome of successful
reform might look like. Central to this vision is a shared
understanding of the primacy of the relationship between doctor and
patient. Hadler shows us that a new approach is necessary if we
hope to improve the health of the populace. Rational health care,
he argues, is far less expensive than the irrationality of the
status quo.
Taking a critical view of how medical treatment, health-care
finance, and attitudes about health, medicine, and disease play out
in broad social and political settings, Hadler applies his wealth
of experience and insight to these pressing issues, answering
important questions for Citizen Patients and policy makers
alike.