Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer
What would real healthcare reform look like? And how can everyday Americans trump big money and put healthcare back on track? Howard Dean speaks out.
“The success of healthcare reform legislation rises and falls on whether the American public is allowed to opt into a universally available public healthcare program, like Medicare, or not. If Congress issues a bill that gives Americans a public option, then there will be real healthcare reform. If not, we could be back fighting about it for another 20 years before anybody tries again.”–Howard DeanAmericans have pondered how to reform healthcare since the days of Harry Truman. But, for most Americans, little has changed—except that healthcare costs have soared, health insurance companies have grown richer, and, today, even those Americans who pay dearly for health insurance frequently find that their policies donÂ’t adequately cover them when they need their coverage most.Something has got to give. In his bold, new book, Howard Dean-the physician and former governor widely credited for reviving the Democratic Party after the 2004 elections-tells Americans what needs to be done to successfully reform healthcare. One key, he writes, is to offer Americans the option to participate in a public healthcare program, much like Medicare. “America has had ’socialized’ medicine since 1964,” says Dean. “ItÂ’s called Medicare; it covers every American over 65, and the majority of them are happy with the program. The rest of America deserves a similar option.”In this straight-talking guide to rising above today’s healthcare crisis, Dean spells out:
- What Obama’s healthcare plan is all about
- How other countries handle healthcare
- Which special interests are standing in the way of progress and why
- How healthcare reform will help American businesses prosper
- Why Americans need choice–between private or public health coverage
Millions of Americans lack health insurance; millions more pay for coverage that doesn’t protect them from serious illness; and the status quo leaves Americans at the mercy of corporate interests. In this persuasive argument from a passionate political strategist, Americans learn how to take back the healthcare reins.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Obamacare demystified. Which I think is supposed to make it more palatable.
Howard Dean, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform (Chelsea
Green, 2009)
Let’s start with the book’s major misnomer: this is not Howard Dean’s prescription for real healthcare reform. This is Barack Obama’s prescription for real healthcare reform, for which Howard Dean is acting as a cheerleader. Despite the title, Dean never makes a secret of this in the actual text, but prospective buyers should be aware of this if they’re thinking they’re going to get a variation on Obama’s plan (or something entirely different).
I’m sure that those who are already in favor of Obama’s healthcare plan will find a great deal to like here, as Dean’s goal is to simply explain it in layman’s terms. In fact, I’m terrified of the Obama healthcare plan, and even I found a lot to like. This has to do with Dean’s word choice to some extent, but like all books that proselytize, Dean has a tendency to ignore the drawbacks of the plan that he can’t defend against (or simply hasn’t thought about). Of course, the plan also has drawbacks that Dean (and, obviously, Obama) consider strengths, such as the use of a universal formulary; any formulary that doesn’t simply say “all prescription drugs” is a bad idea. (One of the most common conflicts between insurance companies and patients is over prescription drugs whose generic versions simply don’t work, for example Synthroid.) And, needless to say, Dean, as all other writers on either side of the healthcare debate, never address the simplest and most obvious (to any person with a real understanding of free markets) solution to the insurance problem: getting rid of insurance entirely. Dean rightly states that free-market solutions haven’t worked with the private insurance industries; he does not, however, seem to understand that “free market” and “insurance” are two terms that can’t be used in the same sentence with a straight face (insurance, by its very nature, seeks to eliminate the risk-reward ratio necessary for a free market model to work; in fact, the problem with private insurance companies is that their CEOs are attempting to do for themselves what insurance does for all of us. So why is it bad when CEOs do it and good when companies do it?). If we were to get rid of insurance, it would be a very, very short time before doctors and hospitals realized that no one in America can afford what they charge, and would be forced to lower their prices to what Americans could afford. That’s what the free market is supposed to do, and insurance companies subvert that paradigm.
As well, Dean trumpets the “efficiency” of Medicare (the program on which Obama’s universal plan is based) in a number of places. This should be laughable to anyone who has ever actually had to deal with Medicare as anything but an end user. Medicare cuts down on bureaucracy? When I worked for an HMO, I did nothing but fill out Medicare paperwork for three months out of every year, and I was part of a department dedicated to doing nothing but filling out Medicare paperwork three months out of every year. It’s the same kind of efficiency that makes American public schools so top-heavy. I’m still a few years away from being a Medicare user, and so I don’t have any firsthand experience with whether they’re actually able to control costs for the end user. If so, more power to them, but to call Medicare “efficient” is disingenuous in the extreme. (There are other problems along these lines, like Dean’s faith in the bidding model used by the government, but we’d be here for far too long if I dissected them all in detail.) It should also be noted in passing that Medicare and Medicaid have obviously not done anything whatsoever in being able to control coses, despite being as large as any private insurance company, so I find it hard to understand how an even larger government-controlled insurance company would be able to do so. Dean fails to go into detail on this, seemingly taking it as a given.
The book’s most valuable section, well worth reading for even the harshest critics of Obama’s plan, is a comparative overview of a number of universal health plans in the world that are generally considered successful. Not all of them by any means (Japan is notable by its absence, though Dean does mention it in a passing comparison to France and Germany), but enough to make the reader understand that every universal health plan is unique, as America’s would have to be. (He does this in order to defuse the “we’ll end up just like Canada/England” arguments constantly trotted out by brainless neocons.) And despite my belief that any universal health care plan would end up bankrupting the country and all its inhabitants, if someone could come up with one that actually had some promise, I’d be right there behind it. Obama’s plan is not that one, no matter how much Dean’s book pretties it up. **
5 Stars Quick, informative
Don’t let the scary town halls inform you on the current health care debate. Get this book instead. Written by Governor Howard Dean, who is a doctor as well, this book lays out the facts and arguments of the debate in a quick, easy to read book.
Only about 100 pages, Dean’s chapters move quickly as he builds his reasons to reform health care. He includes chapters on the costs of health care, potential hurdles, and a plan to make America finally have universal health care.
Those against any reform will not enjoy this book. But if you have questions, and want an easy to read guide to the issue, I highly recommend this book. It will not take more than an hour, and be well worth your time.
4 Stars Worth a Read
Publishing a book on an ongoing event is tricky proposition. The risk is run that by the time the book hits store shelves a good part of the information may be dated. Unfortunately, this is partly the case with Howard Dean’s book, “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform.” But only partly. This book is still worth a read because it contains valuable background information in understanding healthcare policy and systems.
The ongoing healthcare debate in America has been muddled by rhetoric from all sides, many times fraught with inaccuracies and outright deception. To Dean’s credit, although he is obviously a diehard Democrat and is quite opinionated, he tries to build his case on healthcare reform using common sense and logic. He does not simply spout off partisan rhetoric. There are some informative sections on myths of the healthcare debate, basic statistics, and discussion of successful healthcare policies in other countries. Dean’s personal proposals for healthcare policy are easy to understand and logical. He offers up a plan that would provide significant change for the better, yet is not terribly radical and destructive to the economy.
The portion of the book that is weak is Dean’s advocacy of Obamacare. It is no fault of Dean that President Obama and the Democratic Party have drastically changed their stance on healthcare legislation and proposals over the past several months, but it still makes the chapter on Obamacare in this book somewhat dated and irrelevant. In fact, judging by Dean’s personal thoughts on the type of healthcare system the United States should pursue, he is actually now at odds with his own party and president on some key aspects of healthcare reform.
Dean’s thoughtful analysis of healthcare reform and his proposals are worth reading, whether you completely agree with him or not. He gives Americans something to chew on and discuss. “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform” is short and just the right length to serve as a nice primer on understanding the current state of healthcare in America, and what could be done to improve it.
5 Stars A must read . . .
For anyone interested in healthcare reform, this book is a must read. Dr. Dean clearly explains the economic impact of our current system run amok, details the various options being considered and guides the reader through the tough waters of both healthcare and insurance reform.
4 Stars A good overview of the pending health care reform plan
The subtitle of this book should really be “More about President Obama’s health care reform”, as that seems to be the major thrust of the book. Regardless, I found this book to be very informative and helped me see beyond all the sound bites in the media about health care. At times my opinions were swayed towards this reform by his book.
Dr. Dean does give some good background information and insight from his medical profession experience. However, at times, he tries to lay blame on Republicans for muddying the issues, but at times he resorts to the same tactics. He paints a bleak picture for a person under the current system on page 6, talking about a typical family: “they would certainly have lost their house and everything else they own” due to huge health care expenses. But he ignores that filing bankruptcy could prevent the loss of a home and many possessions.
He does highlight some causes of our current problems that aren’t commonly thought of, such as the effect of meat producers over-use of antibiotics when raising animals for food, contributing the problem of antibiotics resistance in humans; the importance of prevention and wellness programs; and provides details to shed light on some common myths. I was surprised to learn that malpractice insurance expenses are only about 2% of total health care costs. Now that doesn’t mean that isn’t an issue, especially for doctors, but I was surprised how low it was. Another staggering figure is Americans spend $700 billion annually on tests and treatments that cannot be shown to improve health.
It is evident that this book was rushed to print as there are some sections that seem rushed, and there is some repetition of information. One example is the otherwise helpful section on other country’s health plans. For France, it says that “the French spend only 11 percent of their GDP on healthcare” but that the Swiss “spend 11.5 percent of the GDP on healthcare, the second highest in the world.” Only –implying a low amount– 11% compared to 11.5% being the second highest doesn’t line up.
Another major issue is he doesn’t really explain how the government could reduce costs compared to private insurance, when Medicare is currently scheduled to be broke (and the book mentions this) by 2017?
Overall, this is a good summary of the issues of health care reform, and would help anyone understand the proposed reforms. It is easy reading, it doesn’t get bogged down in spurious details. One thing that would have been helpful is a glossary of terms, such as “single-payer plan.”
Filed under: Insurance Book Reviews