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Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America's Health Care System
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.10973
EAN: 9780195181326
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0195181328
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: February 10, 2005
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
The problems of medical care confront us daily: a bureaucracy that makes a trip to the doctor worse than a trip to the dentist, doctors who can't practice medicine the way they choose, more than 40 million people without health insurance. "Medical care is in crisis," we are repeatedly told, and so it is. Barely one in five Americans thinks the medical system works well.
Enter David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist who served on President Clinton's health care task force and later advised presidential candidate Bill Bradley. One of the nation's leading experts on the subject, Cutler argues in Your Money or Your Life that health care has in fact improved exponentially over the last fifty years, and that the successes of our system suggest ways in which we might improve care, make the system easier to deal with, and extend coverage to all Americans. Cutler applies an economic analysis to show that our spending on medicine is well worth it--and that we could do even better by spending more. Further, millions of people with easily manageable diseases, from hypertension to depression to diabetes, receive either too much or too little care because of inefficiencies in the way we reimburse care, resulting in poor health and in some cases premature death.
The key to improving the system, Cutler argues, is to change the way we organize health care. Everyone must be insured for the medical system to perform well, and payments should be based on the quality of services provided not just on the amount of cutting and poking performed.
Lively and compelling, Your Money or Your Life offers a realistic yet rigorous economic approach to reforming health care--one that promises to break through the stalemate of failed reform.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Prescribes more of the same
The first part of the book is probably informative for a novice reader on the topic, but hardly original. There are many other sources about how medical care has improved over the years due to surgical techniques, diagnostics, and drug therapies. There are many other sources about some of the economic aspects, like fee-for-service and HMOs. He skips the part about government intrusion.
When the author gets around to advocacy, his politics shows. His "strong medicine" is more government ... Read More
Rating:  - Four and a Half Stars...
since nothing is perfect.
Authoritative, clearly written, and quite interesting; I recommend to anyone -- professionals, academics, laypersons -- interested in these issues.
Specifics:
1) The first 5 chapters convincingly argue that the enormous increases in health care spending are first attributable to new technology and treatments, and well justified, benefits substantially exceed the costs. The arguments are based in substantial part on Cutler's own academic research. ... Read More
Rating: - useful book on current healthcare economics
This book is probably an important addition to the literature on healthcare economics. It offers a good corrective to the politics out there. It reminds us that healthcare spending is not wasted spending, in the sense that it almost always adds value. It also points out that in many ways the costs of healthcare are FALLING.
The real question is how can we continue to improve the value of our healthcare dollar? Cutler concurs with many conservative healthcare analysts that the real problem ... Read More
Rating:  - Tort Reform Ignored
While I found Dr Cutler's analysis penetrating, I was disappointed that he did not discuss in any detail the large impact on medical costs of medical malpractice lawsuits. Not only do these lawsuits increase malpractice insurance premiums of physicians and health insurance premiums of patients, they lead to wasteful defensive medicine, as physicians do unnecessary tests and procedures in order to reduce the risk of malpractice suits. Tort reform is essential to control rising medical costs.
Rating: - compelling approach to fix the broken American health system
Forty million Americans lack health care insurance and costs leap three and four times the inflation rate yet few Americans feel the system provides adequate care. Harvard economics professor and health-care expert Dr. David M. Cutler believes that the problem lies with the inability for most people to understand opportunity costs based on choices that may not lead to an improved life quality. The government and medical leadership exacerbate the problem with saving money as their solution, ignoring effectiveness. ... Read More
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