Overcharged : Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care

"Overcharged is just what the doctor ordered." —Jeffrey S. Flier, MD, former dean, Harvard Medical School

Why is the American health care system so dysfunctional and expensive? Why does the EpiPen, containing $1 worth of medicine, cost $600? Why do hospitalized patients receive bills laden with inflated and surprise charges that come out of the blue from out-of-network providers, or that demand payment for services that weren't delivered? Why is more than $1 trillion—one out of every three dollars that passes through the system—lost to fraud, wasted on services that don't help patients, or misspent? What are the causes of spiraling costs, mediocre quality, and limited access?

Overcharged details how the answers to these questions are connected and reveals a system that performs as if it had been designed to spend as much money as it can, and to be as confusing and unfriendly as possible, with no accountability. Overcharged then exhaustively details real reforms—showing how health care can become more efficient and pro-consumer when it is subjected to the competitive forces that apply to the rest of the economy, and will only get better and cheaper when consumers exert pressure from below.

David A. Hyman is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the H. Ross and Helen Workman Chair in Law and Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois, where he directs the Epstein Program in Health Law and Policy. Hyman has been a member of the American Law Institute since 2000 and serves on the editorial board of the American Journal of Law & Medicine.

Charles Silver holds the Roy W. and Eugenia C. McDonald Endowed Chair in Civil Procedure at the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He has published widely in law reviews and peer-reviewed journals.