Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Ailing System

By Robert H. LeBow and C. Rocky White

Book Overview

Almost five years after the original publication of Dr. Lebow's authoritative dissection of America's health care "system", the situation has in many ways deteriorated. More Americans lack any health insurance, costs continue to increase faster than income, and increasing complexity is overwhelming everyone involved.
In revising this book, Dr. C. Rocky White has included recent developments in the field, and updated the relevant statistics. The bibliography has been expanded to include recently published articles, books and givernment documents. For the most part, however, Dr. LeBow's text has proved to be as timely now as it was upon initial publication in 2002.
With a presidential election coming in 2008, Health Care Meltdown, in its revised edition, will be an essential reference for citizens of all political persuasions. There is little doubt that the failures of America's health care "system" will be a major issue as political campaigns heat up.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0911469303
• ISBN13: 9780911469301
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Alan C Hood & Company
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Classroom Textbook

As an Adjunct instructor in the Concordia University system, I have had the opportunity to encourage my MBA students to read this book for my Special Topics in Health care class. After reviewing other possible textbooks during the last 6 months, I have decided to now use this text as the basis for my 8-week adult education class. Offering ample examples and 'myths' that portray our fractured health care system of today, this author has summarily provided a springboard for ongoing conversations and possible answers for this country. Granted all, the HC system will not be corrected for some time, but an accounting will be made when the public becomes a focused participant at the table. As health care professionals, it is our responsibility to study, learn, participate and educate others, as well as ourselves. This will begin that process and it will be well worth your effort and consideration. Thank you ESchwarz, RN, MBA, CCM

American Health Care Dissected: Engaging and Informative

In more than 20 years teaching a course focusing on analysis of American health care history and policy, I have yet to discover a more persuasive diagnosis of our health care delivery system's ills or a more convincing case for how to cure them. Dr. Lebow brings to this examination direct experience as a practicing physician from which he draws numerous stirring personal accounts. To his clinical perspective, he adds an extraordinary command of the broader economic and political issues essential for understanding the context and causes of America's current health care crisis epitomized by the alarming number of our country's uninsured--now about 44 million and growing. The book is honest, engaging, and sure to stimulate discussion with its clear prescription for change. With lively prose and strategically placed humor, he makes complex matters understandable. His humanity and passion are the earmarks of a brilliant teacher. Regardless of how deeply you presently understand America's health care system, you can learn from this book. And regardless of your political inclinations in respect to his advocacy of a single-payer solution, you can't ignore his meticulous presentation of the facts or the relentless logic of his conclusions from them.

Should be mandatory reading for health care providers

Health Care Meltdown: Confronting The Myths And Fixing Our Failing System by Robert H. LeBow (former Medical Director of an Idaho community health center for more than 25 years and who was paralyzed in a cycling accident shortly after completing this book) is a clarion wake up call focused upon the medical care system's rampant excesses, over billings, neglects, and quagmires that floods the American health care system to near incapacitation. Over 40,000,000 Americans have no health insurance. This places an unsupportable burden on Emergency Room Care (one the most expensive health care provider resources), and while money is in unnecessary and wasteful bureaucratic and law-suit avoidance oriented testing, far to many people simply go without the medical service they desperately need. A sharply worded criticism that also offers models for reform and improvement, Health Care Meltdown should be mandatory reading for health care providers, citizen health care activists, anyone charged with the responsibility of developing policies and guidelines for managing health care services.

LeBow has the cure for our sick health care system

Most of us are aware that there are serious problems with our health care system, particularly that health care costs are out of control and that far too many of us are without any health care coverage. But because of our own relatively good health and complacency with the health insurance coverage that we have, we tend to ignore the crises in funding and access to health care as we concern ourselves with our other daily routines. In "Health Care Meltdown," Robert LeBow explains precisely why our complacency potentially exposes us to financial disaster. Any one of us at any time can develop a serious acute or chronic medical disorder, and only then will it be discovered that current insurance plans are using devious methods to shift costs to their own beneficiaries. It is a great irony that a leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical bills that mount up for individuals who believed that they had adequate coverage. Shortly after completing this book, Robert LeBow became a quadriplegic as the result of a freak bicycle accident. He has "excellent" health insurance, but is close to depleting his lifetime benefit. Then he'll have no insurance at all. Little did he realize that he would become a victim of the health care meltdown that he so aptly describes.Robert LeBow explains how we have more than enough funds and health care capacity to provide comprehensive services for everyone. But because of our sick system of funding care, our resources are diverted to the superfluous middlemen in the system, depriving many of us access to essential health care services. Many myths about health care funding prevail, but Bob explodes those myths, revealing to us the real world behind our nefarious mechanisms of shifting our health care funds from patients to those who benefit from the administrative excesses of our system.But there is hope. Robert LeBow explains precisely how we can reform our system to ensure access for everyone to comprehensive health care, without spending one more penny than we do today. It only requires that we understand what is going on, and what can be done to correct the problems. "Health Care Meltdown" is essential reading for each and every one of us who believe that we should all have life-long, affordable access to comprehensive health care services.

A Wealth of Clues to What is Wrong With Our Health System

This book is is very timely and amazingly lucid on a topic seen by many as beyond comprehension. LeBow has sifted through the complexity and pinpointed the key players and the major causes of a system that has "melted down" - i.e. become dysfunctional for millions of Americans. The book documents how vested interests - people who make a great deal of money by maintaining the status quo - have systematically worked to keep Americans clueless about the extent of the health care meltdown, the causes of the meltdown, and the real story about feasible alternatives. One of the greatest values of the book is found in the opening chapter that identifies and examines thirteen myths that have been perpetuated about the American health care system. LeBow's contention is, quite correctly, that unless these myths get debunked, Americans are not likely to have the necessary will to fix the system. In fact, one of the myths is that old adage "We don't need to fix what isn't broken" applies to our health care system. LeBow's personal accounts of patients' experiences with our system illustrate poignantly just how broken it is. Fortunately, LeBow goes beyond the compelling critique to offer a solution, in the form of a single-payer, single risk-pool model. Recognizing the extent to which interest groups have propagandized the American public against such a model, he argues effectively that this is the ONLY model that will allow this country to resolve its access problems without spending even more on health care than we do already. His arguments are strong, his personal illustrations reinforce his points in well-chosen fashion, and he offers hope for something better. His book is somewhat of a primer for those who are motivated to work for change at a grass roots level, as well as at a macro level. And the reading is easy, on a complicated subject, including nice tight summaries of key points at the end of each chapter. Very worthwhile reading.