Books

Inequality Killing Us All :COVID-19s Health Lessons for the World” by Stephen Bezruchka MD

Published 2023 by Routledge

ISBN:978-1-032-32621-4 (HDBK)  or -1 (PBK)

‘Health’ is defined vs ‘health care’ as the key political goal towards which to organize the paradigm shift to achieve health and social justice

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Health Communism: by Beatrice Adler Bolton and Arie Vierkant, published by Verso Press 2022

ISBN 13:978-1-83976-516-2

This book is a must read to deeply understand the stake the corporate oligarchy has to absolutely block and vilify universal health care ever happening and why.

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Advocacy For Public Health Policy Change – An Urgent Imperative By Harry M. Snyder, JD (Author) And Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH

ISBN 9780875533131

This book on advocacy provides both data and stories to illustrate the effectiveness of public health practitioners engaging directly in making public health policy. Practitioners will learn how to develop and utilize advocacy skills to translate public health knowledge and science into appropriate protective public policy.

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Being Mortal by Atal Gawande, MD

Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.
In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Here he examines its ultimate limitations and failures?in his own practices as well as others'?as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life?all the way to the very end.

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Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide by Abdul El-Sayed & Micah Johnson

There are few issues as consequential in the lives of Americans as healthcare--and few issues more politically vexing. Every American will interact with the healthcare system at some point in their lives, and most people will find that interaction less than satisfactory. And yet, for every dollar spent in our economy, 18 cents go to healthcare. So what are we paying for, exactly?

Healthcare policy is notoriously complex, but what Americans want is simple: good healthcare that's easy to use and doesn't break the bank. Polls show that a majority of Americans want the government to provide universal health coverage to all Americans. What's less clear is how to get there. Medicare for All is the leading proposal to achieve universal health coverage in America. But what is it exactly? How would it work? More importantly, is it practical or practicable? This book goes beyond partisan talking points to offer a serious examination of how Medicare for All would transform the way we give, receive, and pay for healthcare in America.

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An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back – by Elisabeth Rosenthal (Author)

At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. 

Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast?

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The Case for Medicare for All - by Gerald Friedman

Largely privately funded with relatively little public regulation, the United States healthcare system is expensive and inefficient, providing poor care to large parts of the population. For decades, Americans have wrestled with how to fix their broken healthcare system. In this razor-sharp contribution to the healthcare debate, leading economist and former adviser to Bernie Sanders Gerald Friedman recommends that we build on what works: a Medicare system that already efficiently provides healthcare for millions of Americans. 

Rejecting the discredited idea that healthcare should be treated like any other commodity, Friedman shows that healthcare is distinctive and can be best provided only through a universal program of social insurance. Deftly exposing the absurdities of the opponents of reform, Friedman shows in detail how the solution to our health care crisis is staring us in the face: enroll everyone in Medicare to improve the health of all Americans. This bold and brilliantly argued book is essential reading for anyone who wants to see Congress and the White House act to provide America with a 21st-century healthcare system.

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Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care – by Uwe E. Reinhardt (Author)

From a giant of health care policy, an engaging and enlightening account of why American health care is so expensive?and why it doesn't have to be.

Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of the U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than every other advanced country's systems and why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it. Then, drawing on the best evidence, he guides readers through the chaotic, secretive, and inefficient way America pays for health care, dispelling the confusion, ignorance, myths, and misinformation that hinder effective reform.

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Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans – by Wendell Potter

Wendell Potter is the insurance industry's worst nightmare. In June 2009, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. This former senior VP of CIGNA explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they skew political debate with multibillion-dollar PR campaigns designed to spread disinformation.

In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes to show how a massive chunk of our absurd healthcare spending bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. Whatever the fate of the current health care legislation, it does not attempt to change that fundamental problem. Potter shows how relentless PR assaults play an insidious role in our political process anywhere corporate profits are at stake, from climate change to defense policy. Deadly Spin tells us why-and how we must fight back.

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The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care - by T.R. Reid

A New York Times Bestseller, with an updated explanation of the 2010 Health Reform Bill

 Bringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid visits industrialized democracies around the world--France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and beyond--to provide a revelatory tour of successful, affordable universal health care systems. Now updated with new statistics and a plain-English explanation of the 2010 health care reform bill, The Healing of America is required reading for all those hoping to understand the state of health care in our country and worldwide.

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Health Care Revolt: How to Organize, Build a Health Care System, and Resuscitate Democracy—All at the Same Time Kindle Edition - by Michael Fine (Author), Bernard Lown MD (Foreword), Ariel Lown Lewiton (Foreword)

The U.S. does not have a health system. Instead, we have a market for health-related goods and services, a market in which the few profit from the public’s ill-health. Health Care Revolt looks around the world for examples of health care systems that are effective and affordable, pictures such a system for the U.S., and creates a practical playbook for a political revolution in health care that will allow the nation to protect health while strengthening democracy.

Dr. Fine writes with the wisdom of a clinician, the savvy of a state public health commissioner, the precision of a scholar, and the energy and commitment of a community organizer.

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The Great American Healthcare Scam: How Kickbacks, Collusion and Propaganda Have Exploded Healthcare Costs in the United States - by David Belk MD (Author), Paul Belk PhD (Author)

The purpose of this book is to effectively untangle and expose nearly all of the deceptions that occur in medical billing, prescription drug pricing, and the health insurance industry in the U.S. Throughout the book, I use actual medical bills and receipts along with data I've obtained from the financial disclosures of hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and government databases to back up each and every claim I make. I guarantee this book will make your head spin because, as bad as you think our healthcare system is, it's actually far worse, and this book will show exactly why and how that's the case. Also, even though many people think they know what the health insurance companies are attempting to do, they're probably wrong. 

David Belk got his medical degree from the University of Southern California School of Medicine and solo practice in Alameda, California. He began exposing irregularities in medical billing and prescription drug pricing with his website The True Cost of Healthcare in 2011. His brother Paul Belk got his Ph.D. in medical physics from a joint program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. He works as a senior scientist in the medical industry.

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Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health - by Howard Waitzkin

Health care professionals, activists and scholars weigh in on how the U.S. can address the shortcomings of the "medical industrial complex" and extend affordable health care to all. I’ve still got my health so what do I care? goes a lyric in an old Cole Porter song. Most of us, in fact, assume we can’t live full lives, or take on life’s challenges, without also assuming that we’re basically healthy and will be for the foreseeable future. But these days, our health and well-being are sorted through an ever-expanding, profit-seeking financial complex that monitors, controls, and commodifies our very existence. 

Given that our access to competent, affordable health care grows more precarious each day, the arrival of Health Care Under the Knife could not be more-timely. In this empowering book, noted health-care professionals, scholars, and activists-including editor Howard Waitzkin impart their inside knowledge of the medical system: what’s wrong, how it got this way, and what we can do to heal it.

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Public Hostage Public Ransom: Ending Institutional America - by William Bronston, MD

Public Hostage, Public Ransom starts with the autobiographical story of William Bronston, the activist physician whose early professional California training steels him with a deep moral, professional and cultural bond to the huge 6000 person disabled population he encounters incarcerated in Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, NY, on whose behalf he daily battles to humanize and ultimately catalyze a Federal Class Action Lawsuit against the state to close the deathmaking institution. 

Prior to the expose of Willowbrook, no small individualized community living arrangements existed across New York state in lieu of 30 massive state institutions. Medicaid funded, these institutions warehoused the ‘different’ population imposed on their stricken families. Having been closed to admission by public scandal and impossible overcrowding, families were blackmailed to have their dependent member submit to secret viral research whose impact was completely unknown, where rampant disease, gruesome sanitation, lack of adequate food, clothing, carloads of tranquilizing medicine and the most minimal care and supervision was the brutal norm. 

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Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing our Ailing System - by Robert H. LeBow, M.D. and C. Rocky White, M.D.

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.

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To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History - by Adam Gaffney, MD

The "human right to healthcare" has had a remarkable rise. It is found in numerous international treaties and national constitutions, it is litigated in courtrooms across the globe, it is increasingly the subject of study by scholars across a range of disciplines, and?perhaps most importantly?it serves as an inspiring rallying cry for health justice activists throughout the world. However, though increasingly accepted as a principle, the historical roots of this right remain largely unexplored.

 To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History fills that gap, combining a sweeping historical scope and interdisciplinary synthesis. Beginning with the Age of Antiquity and extending to the Age of Trump, it analyzes how healthcare has been conceived and provided as both a right and a commodity over time and space, examining the key historical and political junctures when the right to healthcare was widened or diminished in nations around the globe. To Heal Humankind will prove indispensable for all those interested in human rights, the history of public health, and the future of healthcare.

Available on Amazon  and Barnes & Noble

The Hidden History of American Health Care - by Thom Harman

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality.

 "For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann. Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan’s single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice - by Rupa Myra MD and Raj Patel

Raj Patel, the New York Times bestselling author of The Value of Nothing, teams up with physician, activist, and co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition Rupa Marya to reveal the links between health and structural injustices--and to offer a new deep medicine that can heal our bodies and our world.

The Covid pandemic and the shocking racial disparities in its impact. The surge in inflammatory illnesses such as gastrointestinal disorders and asthma. Mass uprisings around the world in response to systemic racism and violence. Rising numbers of climate refugees. Our bodies, societies, and planet are inflamed.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Common Sense: U. S. Health Care at a Crossroads in the 2018 Congress – John Geyman, M.D.

In his pamphlet, Common Sense, Thomas Paine made a strong argument for people in the Thirteen Colonies to gain independence from England in 1775-1776. This pamphlet takes a similar approach based on simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.

Now, 242 years later, the subject is different but parallel to his goal—to have the American people gain freedom from corporate interests in our medical-industrial complex that take their exorbitant profits on the backs of sick Americans, their families, and taxpayers. Here we describe how Republicans have failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over the last seven years.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Crisis In U.S. Health Care: Corporate Power vs. The Common Good – John Geyman, M.D.

The problems of U.S. health care are of intense public interest today. Unfortunately, the debate over where to go next to rein in costs and improve access to quality health care has become bitterly partisan, with distorted rhetoric largely uninformed by history, evidence, or health policy science. Our expensive dysfunctional system threatens patients, families, the government, and taxpayers with future bankruptcy based on present trends.

This book takes a 60-year view of our health care system, from 1956 to 2016, from the perspective of a family physician who has lived through these years as a practitioner in two rural communities, a professor and administrator of family medicine in medical schools, a journal editor for 30 years, and a researcher and writer on health care for more than four decades.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Common Sense: The Case For and Against Medicare For All – John Geyman, M.D.

In his pamphlet, Common Sense, Thomas Paine made a strong case for people in the Thirteen Colonies to gain independence from England in 1775-1776. This pamphlet is also based on simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense. Now, 243 years later, the subject is different but parallel to his goal—to have the American people win their freedom from corporate interests in our medical-industrial complex that take excessive profits on the backs of sick individuals, their families, and taxpayers.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Struggling and Dying Under Trumpcare: How We Can Fix This – John Geyman, M.D.

Here we make a compelling case to adopt universal coverage for health care for all U.S. residents through Expanded and Improved Medicare for All. We then summarize the case against it by influential corporate stakeholders fighting for the status quo and refuting their myths and disinformation.

This book charts the way to real reform based on Democratic control of the House and 70 percent of Americans supporting Medicare for All.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Profiteering, Corruption, and Fraud in U. S. Health Care – John Geyman, M.D.

John Geyman, M.D. has written an eye-opening, comprehensive account of the wanton and unabashed corruption within the American health care system. Exceptionally researched and documented from both sides of the political aisle, the book focuses on all aspects of the health care system -- including the issue of many Americans being denied basic coverage -- and the numerous attempts over the years to fix or replace it. In Profiteering, Corruption, and Fraud, the author has provided readers with an informed, timely, and meaningful narrative.

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America’s Mighty Medical-Industrial Complex – John Geyman, M.D.

Dr. John Geyman, a physician for the people, wrote this lifesaving, health-protecting book to be used in action. With reams of overwhelming evidence so clearly documented and displayed, this book is ideal for advocacy and political action to enact Medicare for All. It will be introduced as H.R 1976 and already has strong congressional support. Knowledge invites action!

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Long-Term Care in America: The Crisis All of Us Will Face in Our Lifetimes Paperback – by M D John P Geyman

There is a looming crisis in our nation's capacity to provide long-term care. The needs keep increasing while more and more of our aging seniors and large numbers of disabled can no longer gain access to affordable care.

The markers are serious--more than one-half of Americans of age 65 and older are expected to need help with activities of daily living, whether in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or at home; U. S. seniors are projected to outnumber children under 18 by 2035; dementia increases as our population ages, expected to involve almost 40 percent of people over age 85; one in four Americans has a major disability, and there is a growing shortage of caregivers.

Regardless of our age and current circumstances, all of us will face the need for long-term care for a parent, another family member, or ourselves down the road. However, when that time comes, it is an open question whether most of us will be able to gain access to personal, affordable long-term care when we need it. This book examines the many issues involved in charting a way toward a system of universal coverage that will fix the challenge of long-term care.

Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble