Description
Book SynopsisTracking the evolution of medical care from an individualized small cottage profession to a giant impersonal corporate industry costing Americans over $3 trillion each year. Over the past three decades, the once-efficient American health care system has evolved into a complex maze of monopolies and a racket of bureaucratic checks, approvals, denials, roadblocks, and detours. This shift has created a massive and at times redundant workforce that frustrates patients, as well as physicians, nurses, and administrative staff. Health care costs the United States over $3 trillion each year and consumes over 18% of the country's gross domestic product. That's more than $11,000 for each person in the country each yearmore than double what it costs in most Western European countries to deliver equal or even better care. In Corporatizing American Health Care, Robert W. Derlet, MD, traces the progression of health care policy in the United States. How, he asks, has US health care transformed f
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Outrageous Cost of American Health Care
Chapter 1. Prescription Drugs: Monopolies and Profits
Chapter 2. Hospitals: Profit First
Chapter 3. Physicians
Chapter 4. Health Plans: The Money Middlemen
Chapter 5. European Systems of Health Care Delivery
Chapter 6. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 and Other Federal Health Care Laws
Chapter 7. Emergency Departments
Chapter 8. The Medical Implant Device Industry
Chapter 9. Tests and Studies: Radiology, Laboratory, and Technical Procedures
Chapter 10. Nursing Homes and Special Facilities
Conclusion
References
Index
