Why is American Healthcare so Expensive: Solving the Puzzle of American Healthcare Costs to Build a Low-Cost System - Paperback

by Harvey Singh (Author)

This book will be of interest to anyone who is frustrated with the ever-rising costs of American medicine and wants to take a behind-the-scenes look at what is causing this trend. Written for the layperson and the expert alike, it explains why our healthcare market in which the providers depend heavily upon insurance companies for payments is not a free market. Add to that the practice of paying doctors on a fee-for-service basis, and we have created a market with perverse incentives for nearly all the market players. This has resulted in a system of care in which medical mistakes are ubiquitous, malpractice lawsuits are common, and 'end of life' medical costs are astronomical. In fact, medicine has become more dangerous than the disease and a single look at the price tag for some of the treatments can be enough to shock the wealthiest of Americans. But these seemingly diverse and apparently unrelated problems have common origins. The book identifies the common elements at the root of these problems. Then it goes on to show how most problems can be solved by fundamentally changing the way we deliver medicine to our citizens.