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Book to Increase Heart Rate or Blood Pressure! Part-1

by John on 07/18/2017

An American Sickness RosenthalThis is a rolling book review of An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal.

I am half way through.  Here’s why you should read it:

  • It can be especially helpful during the Congressional funfest known as repeal and replace that shows neither political party has a clue about healthcare in the US.
  • You will understand why medical costs are so high in America while our healthcare is worse than other nations.
  • You will also be much more suspicious when you go to the doctor’s office.

Elisabeth Rosenthal is a non-practicing physician and former New York Times reporter.  She has written what appears to be an investigation and indictment of the United States healthcare industry.  The book should come with a medical warning: this book will piss you off once you realize you’ve been duped by an industry you thought cared.

A disclaimer here from me as well: I am spokesperson for Liberty Health Share which is medical cost sharing. So far in the book, which I am halfway through, she has not mentioned Liberty Health Share or medical cost sharing.

Here are the highlights of An American Sickness so far:

  • Your doctor, your hospital, drug makers, and even the so-called philanthropic organizations have found ways to make money off you and your healthcare bills.
  • The biggest rule for all of these so-called healthcare organizations is sadly: a lifetime of treatment brings in more money than a cure.
  • The most scandalous anecdote comes from diabetes research. A researcher at Harvard Medical School was close to finding a cure for type one diabetes. However, she couldn’t find any funding from either the pharmaceuticals or even organizations like the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, because there was no profit in the long run.
  • Drug advertising, which you see all over television today, is considered by the Supreme Court as, wait for it,  free speech.
  • Ironically, those same drugs have been approved by the FDA by only comparing their effectiveness against placebos, not other drugs on the market. So, we get drugs, pushed by doctors because they are better than nothing.

This is a well-documented book.  Half-way through, I am only hearing the horror stories now.  There are solutions, though, as Rosenthal promises.  I will have those in the next rolling book review.  Hopefully you won’t have succumbed to utter despair before I can give them to you.

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