Catastrophic Care is a book written by David Goldhill about why everything we think we know about health care is wrong. He addresses many national problems in relation to health care and gives examples as to why we face them. Throughout this paper I will critique the book and discuss my opinions in comparison with David’s.
What is the hypothesis (or hypotheses) of the author(s) in the book you selected? Do the authors identify limitations or failures in our current health care “system”? If so, please discuss these limitations.
The overall purpose of David writing this book is defined within the title, to explain to everyone “why everything we think we know about health care is wrong.” As the title foreshadows, the book discusses a lot of …show more content…
Not only is the U.S spending too much on medical care but so is each individual. He gave an example of how Becky has a job with “benefits” and although she, and most people, think that’s how she receives her health insurance, it’s not the only way. There are many other ways she is contributing to the health care pool that she is not aware of. David believes it’s impossible to determine if the increase in health care costs correlates to an increase in life span, although studies show the attribution isn’t much. Therefore, why are we spending so much if we aren’t seeing results or statistics on that’s what it takes to have a healthy country? David discusses a few sectors in which spending can be reduced and some of the major ones include waste and excess, pharmaceuticals, and overtreatment/overuse/overdiagnosis. I do believe most of these sectors can be reduced in some way to benefit our system. Most of these sectors are because our system provides an incentive for them. To relieve part of the pharmaceutical problem, we should not allow drug companies to advertise their products on T.V as this creates the problem of Americans wanting drugs that may pertain to them even if they don’t need it. Physicians are incentivized to overprescribe so they aren’t sued or because they get paid for each service. We need to tweak our legal system and reimbursement model so these don’t contribute to our problems. I do agree with David that these and many other sectors in which spending can be reduced to overall cut our medical costs which is necessary to improve our
What is the hypothesis (or hypotheses) of the author(s) in the book you selected? Do the authors identify limitations or failures in our current health care “system”? If so, please discuss these limitations.
The overall purpose of David writing this book is defined within the title, to explain to everyone “why everything we think we know about health care is wrong.” As the title foreshadows, the book discusses a lot of …show more content…
Not only is the U.S spending too much on medical care but so is each individual. He gave an example of how Becky has a job with “benefits” and although she, and most people, think that’s how she receives her health insurance, it’s not the only way. There are many other ways she is contributing to the health care pool that she is not aware of. David believes it’s impossible to determine if the increase in health care costs correlates to an increase in life span, although studies show the attribution isn’t much. Therefore, why are we spending so much if we aren’t seeing results or statistics on that’s what it takes to have a healthy country? David discusses a few sectors in which spending can be reduced and some of the major ones include waste and excess, pharmaceuticals, and overtreatment/overuse/overdiagnosis. I do believe most of these sectors can be reduced in some way to benefit our system. Most of these sectors are because our system provides an incentive for them. To relieve part of the pharmaceutical problem, we should not allow drug companies to advertise their products on T.V as this creates the problem of Americans wanting drugs that may pertain to them even if they don’t need it. Physicians are incentivized to overprescribe so they aren’t sued or because they get paid for each service. We need to tweak our legal system and reimbursement model so these don’t contribute to our problems. I do agree with David that these and many other sectors in which spending can be reduced to overall cut our medical costs which is necessary to improve our