Synopsis
This book shows the human face of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare) as the stories of real patients and their families best illustrate continuing problems of our health care system. It also shows how many of the promises made by the Obama administration have not been kept. The big question now is: “What next?”The ACA has helped many millions of people since its enactment in 2010, but has fallen far short of what is needed to improve access, affordability, and quality of U. S. health care. Much of our population still cannot afford health care, and there is no cost containment in sight. Underinsurance is the new norm, with narrowed networks, high deductibles, and increasing cost-sharing forcing many people to forego necessary care. Here we take a comprehensive, non-partisan, objective look at the ACA almost six years after its passage. We also take an evidence-based approach to assessing three major alternatives for further health care reform: (1) continuation of the ACA with improvements as needed, (2) Republican proposals for its repeal and/or replacement, and (3) single-payer national health insurance (NHI).
About the Author
John Geyman, M.D. is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Family Medicine from 1976 to 1990. As a family physician with over 25 years in academic medicine, he also practiced in rural communities for 13 years. He was the founding editor of The Journal of Family Practice (1973 to 1990) and the editor of The American Journal of Family Medicine from 1990 to 2003. Since 1990 he has been involved with research and writing on health policy and health care reform. His most recent book How Obamacare Is Unsustainable: Why We Need a Single-Payer Solution For All Americans (2015). Earlier books include Health Care Wars: How Market Ideology and Corporate Power Are Killing Americans (2012), Souls On a Walk: An Enduring Love Story Unbroken by Alzheimer's (2012), Breaking Point: How the Primary Care Crisis Threatens the Lives of Americans (2011), Hijacked: The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform (2010), The Cancer Generation: Baby Boomers Facing a Perfect Storm (2009), Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry Is Dying (2008), The Corrosion of Medicine: Can the Profession Reclaim Its Moral Legacy (2008), and Shredding the Social Contract: The Privatization of Medicare (2006), and Health Care in America: Can Our Ailing System Be Healed? (2002). Flying is John's avocation, having been a pilot for 56 years. Now, as an active member of the United Flying Octogenarians, he flies patients from San Juan Island to and from the mainland for chemotherapy and radiation therapy. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and served as the president of Physicians for a National Health Program from 2005 to 2007, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
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