Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars: Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care - Hardcover

Kaplan, Robert M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0387740449 ISBN 13: 9780387740447

Publisher: Springer, 2008

Synopsis

Here’s a conundrum: the U.S. health care system is the largest sector in the biggest economy in the world, and the US spends significantly more per capita on health care than any other country. Yet it ranks last among comparison nations on the major health indicators. Robert Kaplan attempts to tackle these anomalies head-on by taking the controversial position that mass markets have been created for services that may offer little or no benefit to patients. Kaplan forcefully argues that the overuse of medications and tests runs up the costs of health care, and offers potential solutions for policy makers and for patients.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars

Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care

Robert M. Kaplan, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA

Close 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.

About the Author:

Robert M. Kaplan is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Services at the UCLA School of Public Health. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He has been elected president of four different academic societies and has served as editor-in-chief for two major journals. Kaplan is the author or editor of 16 books and more than 400 articles or chapters. In 2005, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science.

About this edition

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0387740449
• ISBN 13: 9780387740447
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208