Code Blue: Health Care in Crisis - Hardcover

Annis, Edward R., M.D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 089526515X ISBN 13: 9780895265159

Publisher: Regnery Pub, 1993

Synopsis

I strongly suggest that the public read this book before swallowing the nostrum currently discussed nightly on the news. It could, one day, be the difference between living and dying. --The Philadelphia Inquirer

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Health Care costs are spiraling out of control while government officials grope for solutions. But can government solve the country's health care problems? And can America preserve prompt, quality care with a socialized system where Canada and Great Britain have failed? Dr. Edward Annis says no! In Code Blue: Health Care in Crisis, he champions the fight to head off government intrusion between doctor and patient and dispels the myth that a "managed" health care system would solve America's problems. What the press doesn't tell the public - but Dr. Annis does - is that the problems in health care have a "Made in Washington" label. Health care is the most over-regulated industry in America. Doctors and hospitals that deliver health care are strangled by senseless paperwork counter-productive bureaucracy, an abusive civil court system, and price controls that are actually driving prices up. What we call a health care crisis in America is actually a crisis in government. To correct the problem we need less government, not more, and Dr. Annis prescribes a solution to eliminate government interference in the health care industry. Code Blue shows how the politically biased news media have skewed statistics to convince the public that Americans pay a higher price for inferior health care than other Western nations. In fact, Dr. Annis shows that Americans enjoy the best medical care the world has ever known and that socialist systems control costs by denying medical services to some, by delaying medical services to many, and by stifling research and innovation. The average wait in some regions of Canada for a simple mammography, a test that is vital in exposing the presence of cancer, is twoand a half months. In the United States, there is no wait. Dr. Annis does more than chronicle the ills of the current system. He offers a comprehensive free market alternative to the health care system that would restore the traditional doctor/patient relationship, make health care affordable to working Americans, and expand services to the medically indigent.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Ill-tempered invective by a former president of the American Medical Association, railing against bureaucrats, malpractice lawyers, the press, and others whose morals or behavior offend him--and demanding a return to the days when doctors were ``well respected'' and medical care was ``available to all regardless of ability to pay.'' ``The Golden Age of Medicine'' is how Annis describes the era before LBJ's Great Society programs, when the author, now an octogenarian, was practicing family medicine and general surgery in Florida. Annis makes those years sound like an idyllic time for both doctors and patients: Bills were simple, patients paid promptly, and local medical societies ensured that physicians were both competent and ethical. Annis begins by relating his growing involvement with the AMA's fight against ``socialized medicine,'' a fight allegedly lost because of ``demagoguery,'' ``media distortion,'' and ``the cunning of the Americans for Democratic Action.'' He then describes the present state of health care, indeed the present state of our troubled society. As he sees it, where capitalism operates, society is productive, with community pride and strong family values; where socialism prevails, we find drug abuse, crime, violence, ignorance, and disrespect for authority and self. The key to the health-care crisis, then, is to let the free-market economy operate. Annis credits the National Center for Policy Analysis with a plan that will give people the freedom to choose their own health care and the ability to use their own earnings to pay for it. Details are sketchy. Strident and rancorous rhetoric by an experienced partisan- -one who knows how to attack but fails to persuade. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Regnery Pub
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 089526515X
• ISBN 13: 9780895265159
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288