A compact, perceptive diagnosis of the nation’s terminally ill health care system.
by J. Joseph Marr ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2015
A physician laments the rise of corporations and the decline of the doctor-patient relationship in American medicine.
Marr (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Parasites, 1995) asserts that American medicine has been radically changed by technological innovations, the growth of private and public health insurance, and the profit motive. Over the past half-century, these factors have “altered medical care almost beyond recognition.” Although technology brought many advances, the advent of “Star Trek medicine” helped distance doctors from patients by inserting “physician extenders” —medical assistants, nurses, and techs—into patient care. Outside clinics mainly staffed by these workers grew as insurance companies attempted to control costs. Private and government insurers tried to tamp down rising health care costs by saddling physicians with complex and time-consuming cost-control programs. But doctors aren’t really the problem, Marr argues. Physicians account for only about 10 percent of America’s medical bill. Technology, profits, and other factors have driven the explosion in costs, along with added layers of bureaucrats, managers, and executives. “Medicine lost its soul when big business entered,” Marr writes. As doctors became more like team managers than personal physicians, they distanced themselves from patients, who were “relegated to the status of a product.” Ultimately, this will increase misdiagnoses, he avers. Compared to other advanced nations, the U.S. has extraordinarily high per capita medical costs, while citizens enjoy only mediocre health. Marr has produced a tightly written, forcefully argued indictment of the U.S. health care system that’s well-documented and benefits from his insider knowledge of how hospitals and health care professionals work. His explanation of what led to this mess is succinct and clear. Although it’s hard to feel sorry for handsomely paid physicians, Marr’s argument that they’re more victims than beneficiaries of the corporatized, bureaucratized system rings true, though he could bolster his case with more details about just how much of the massive U.S. medical bill bureaucracy, for-profit hospitals, and insurance companies account for. He’s probably right, however, that this sick system will ultimately crash—a prediction that calls into question his perhaps too-pessimistic conclusion that the system’s structure can’t be changed.
A compact, perceptive diagnosis of the nation’s terminally ill health care system.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5484-9
Page Count: 134
Publisher: True Directions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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