Epidemic of Care – A Call for Safer, Better & More Accountable Health Care

A CURE FOR OUR AILING HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Health care costs in America are skyrocketing, with premium increases of 30 to 40 percent not unheard of for some insurers and some consumers. And what does the system have to show for it? More than forty million uninsured citizens, inconsistent and unaccountable care, and the fastest growing and most wasteful health care delivery economy in the world. In Epidemic of Care, two of the country's most prominent leaders in health care offer a primer on health care cost drivers--and what can be done to curtail them and save the system. This hard-hitting look at a failing system reveals

• Why the cost of health care will cause deep cuts in the take-home pay of American workers--a 12 percent premium increase wipes out a 4 percent salary increase
• How voter demands for changes in the system will bring about a political nightmare
• Why many smaller companies will drop health care coverage altogether, leaving millions uninsured
• How our health care delivery system is really a non-system--with millions of independent, uncoordinated, and separately moving parts and its own priorities
• Why health care will never approach perfection until computers become exam room tools for the frontline physician
• How to cure the system in a way politically acceptable to all sides

> --Excerpted from the Foreword by Alain Enthoven, Marriner S. Eccles Professor of Public and Private Management (Emeritus), Graduate School of Business, Stanford University