Do not resuscitate : why the health insurance industry is dying, and how we must replace it / John Geyman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Geyman, John P., 1931-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Insurance, Health--economics.

United States.

Medically Uninsured.

Health Services Accessibility.

Health care reform--United States.

Health care reform.

Health insurance--United States.

Health insurance.

Medical economics--United States.

Medical economics.

Medically uninsured persons--United States.

Medically uninsured persons.

Medical care--United States.

Medical care.

Medical Subjects:

Insurance, Health--economics.

United States.

Medically Uninsured.

Health Services Accessibility.

Physical Description:

xvii, 253 pages : illustrations, charts ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Monroe, Me. : Common Courage Press, [2008]

Summary:

"Geyman's literary voice arises from his unusual professional and political trajectories: from country doctor to academic department chair and prominent journal editor, and from longtime Republican to president of Physicians for a National Health Program ... a passionate advocate and scholar."-- The New England Journal of Medicine -- "The raging debate over how to pay for health insurance has missed a profoundly important fact: As big as it is, as tight of a grip it has on American life, the health insurance industry is dying," states John Geyman, MD, in Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry is Dying, and How We Must Replace It. Written for lay readers, health care professionals, and policymakers alike, Do Not Resuscitate moves beyond books that decry our current problems to reveal what the trend for more than half a century of increasing costs and decreasing coverage really means. The situation for doctors, patients, caregivers, and even the insured will move from dysfunctional to a complete breakdown over the next decade. In one of many examples Geyman cites, as employers cut costs in a global economy, the cost of health insurance as a proportion of wages is rising to the point where it will consume all average household income by 2025. John Geyman is professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of The Corrosion of Medicine: Can the Profession Reclaim its Moral Legacy?, Falling Through the Safety Net: Americans Without Health Insurance, and Shredding the Social Contract: The Privatization of Medicare .

Contents:

Chapter 1 In Sickness and in Wealth: Growth of a Monolithic Industry 1

Chapter 2 The Big Three and the Three M's: Mergers, Market Share, and Medical Loss Ratios 29

Chapter 3 From "Cherry Picking" to "Denial Management": How the Industry Really Works 39

Chapter 4 Myths and Mirrors: How the Industry Perpetuates Itself 67

Chapter 5 Terminally Ill: An Imploding Industry on a Death March 91

Chapter 6 Saving Lives or Saving the Industry?: Why Incremental System "Reforms" Continue to Fail 123

Chapter 7 Drawing the Battle Lines: The Industry's Rear-Guard Action 155

Chapter 8 Beyond Denial of an Obsolete Industry to a New Day 185.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Errata sheet inserted.

ISBN:

9781567513967

1567513964

9781567513974

1567513972

OCLC:

231586030