Ebook: Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars: Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars

Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care

Robert M. Kaplan, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA

Close to 50 Million Uninsured,

Steeply Rising Insurance Premiums,

Employers Cutting Healthcare Benefits . . .

There’s plenty wrong with this picture. In Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars, public health expert Robert Kaplan takes America’s healthcare industry to task and challenges readers to examine their own roles in it.

Provocative, timely, and comprehensively researched, this book analyzes the current healthcare crisis in terms of medical culture, economics, and advertising. The findings reveal a system fraught with conflicts—contradictory healthcare policies, providers who over-test and over-prescribe, patients with unrealistic demands fueled by the media—and throughout, an absence of accountability. Much of preventive medicine, Kaplan persuasively argues, comes down to the selling of expensive pills and procedures that drive up costs while subjecting the population to unneeded risks and complications. And the end result, he argues, is excess care for many people, and a dearth of care for many more.

Kaplan’s informed, practical, and constructive approach makes Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars a "must-read" volume for policymakers and professionals in public health and healthcare, and for business owners as well as ordinary citizens and consumers concerned with the viability of healthcare in America.

---

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars

Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care

Robert M. Kaplan, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA

Close to 50 Million Uninsured,

Steeply Rising Insurance Premiums,

Employers Cutting Healthcare Benefits . . .

There’s plenty wrong with this picture. In Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars, public health expert Robert Kaplan takes America’s healthcare industry to task and challenges readers to examine their own roles in it.

Provocative, timely, and comprehensively researched, this book analyzes the current healthcare crisis in terms of medical culture, economics, and advertising. The findings reveal a system fraught with conflicts—contradictory healthcare policies, providers who over-test and over-prescribe, patients with unrealistic demands fueled by the media—and throughout, an absence of accountability. Much of preventive medicine, Kaplan persuasively argues, comes down to the selling of expensive pills and procedures that drive up costs while subjecting the population to unneeded risks and complications. And the end result, he argues, is excess care for many people, and a dearth of care for many more.

Kaplan’s informed, practical, and constructive approach makes Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars a "must-read" volume for policymakers and professionals in public health and healthcare, and for business owners as well as ordinary citizens and consumers concerned with the viability of healthcare in America.

---

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars

Facing the Ever-Expanding Market for Medical Care

Robert M. Kaplan, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA

Close to 50 Million Uninsured,

Steeply Rising Insurance Premiums,

Employers Cutting Healthcare Benefits . . .

There’s plenty wrong with this picture. In Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars, public health expert Robert Kaplan takes America’s healthcare industry to task and challenges readers to examine their own roles in it.

Provocative, timely, and comprehensively researched, this book analyzes the current healthcare crisis in terms of medical culture, economics, and advertising. The findings reveal a system fraught with conflicts—contradictory healthcare policies, providers who over-test and over-prescribe, patients with unrealistic demands fueled by the media—and throughout, an absence of accountability. Much of preventive medicine, Kaplan persuasively argues, comes down to the selling of expensive pills and procedures that drive up costs while subjecting the population to unneeded risks and complications. And the end result, he argues, is excess care for many people, and a dearth of care for many more.

Kaplan’s informed, practical, and constructive approach makes Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars a "must-read" volume for policymakers and professionals in public health and healthcare, and for business owners as well as ordinary citizens and consumers concerned with the viability of healthcare in America.

Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xvii
Disease, Outcomes, and Money....Pages 1-6
The Disease-Reservoir Hypothesis....Pages 7-20
Mental Models of Health and Healthcare....Pages 21-34
What Is Disease and When Does It Begin?....Pages 35-46
Screening for Cancer....Pages 47-72
Deciding When Blood Pressure Is Too High....Pages 73-94
The Cholesterol Cutoff....Pages 95-110
Diabetes, Obesity, and the Metabolic Syndrome....Pages 111-130
Cost-Effectiveness and Opportunity Costs....Pages 131-147
Shared Medical Decision-Making....Pages 149-165
Putting the Pieces Together....Pages 167-178
Back Matter....Pages 179-187