Why Our Health Matters: A Vision of Medicine That Can Transform Our Future

Published 2009

IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE BEST HEALTH CARE IN THE WORLD, THINK AGAIN

• Americans spend more per capita on health care than any other people in the world, yet we have the worst health outcomes among the developed nations:
  The World Health Organization ranks us on a par with Serbia.
• Exorbitant medical costs have become a leading cause of personal bankruptcy.
• We are the only developed country without a national system of health care.
• The healthcare industry generates enormous profits: The profit margin of three of our largest insurance companies in 2006 ranged from 26 percent to 29 percent.
• America has a glut of specialists and a serious deficiency of generalists:
  Internists may make as much as $204,000, but a radiologist can earn as much as $911,000.
• Although new technology usually brings costs down, half of recent increases in the cost of health care are attributable to new technologies, including new drugs.
• Without lifestyle strategies that promote health, chronic, degenerative disease will dramatically increase as baby boomers reach old age.
• Few of the many pharmaceutical drugs on the market are actually safe and effective,
• Safe and effective alternatives to drugs do exist: We should look to them first for managing the most common health problems.
• We must change the education and training of all health professionals if we are going to solve the health-care crisis.
• Our long-term goal must be to shift our health-care efforts from disease intervention to disease prevention and health promotion.

*Book in very good pre-loved condition.