Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical CareRobert M. Kaplan, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CAClose to 50 Million Uninsured, Steeply Rising Insurance Premiums, Employers Cutting Healthcare Benefits . . .There's plenty wrong with this picture. In Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars, public health expert Robert Kaplan takes America's healthcare industry to task and challenges readers to examine their own roles in it. Provocative, timely, and comprehensively researched, this book analyzes the current healthcare crisis in terms of medical culture, economics, and advertising. The findings reveal a system fraught with conflicts-contradictory healthcare policies, providers who over-test and over-prescribe, patients with unrealistic demands fueled by the media-and throughout, an absence of accountability. Much of preventive medicine, Kaplan persuasively argues, comes down to the selling of expensive pills and procedures that drive up costs while subjecting the population to unneeded risks and complications. And the end result, he argues, is excess care for many people, and a dearth of care for many more. Kaplan's informed, practical, and constructive approach makes Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars a must-read volume for policymakers and professionals in public health and healthcare, and for business owners as well as ordinary citizens and consumers concerned with the viability of healthcare in America.