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This revised edition of Arnold Birenbaum's important book brings the work up to date through the end of 1994 and the close of the 103rd Congress. It offers a comprehensive, provocative, and completely new assessment of health care reform with a focus on financing and coverage. A fine primer.on the health care debate (JAMA), the book examines such topics as the changing doctor-patient relationship, the growth of managed care, the rise and decline of hospitals, American business and health benefits, and the uninsured in America. This new edition takes particular heed to the failure of health care reform in 1994.
In responding to the first edition, Victor Sidel, M.D., former president of the American Public Health Association, called it, "A wonderfully far-ranging, meticulously documented, insightfully analyzed and remarkably well written challenge to professionals, patients, and community members to work for effective change in a bizarre, expensive, inefficient, and often unresponsive medical care system."
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
A System in Need of DirectionDissatisfaction Widespread--Our Leaders Receive a Wake-Up Call
The Changing Relationship with Your Doctor
The Growth of Managed Care and the Backlash
The Challenge to Providers
The Rise and Decline of Hospitals
American Business and Health Benefits
The Uninsured, the Uninsurable, and the Fear of Falling
Current NeedsVulnerable People
Long-Term Care
People with AIDS
The Right to Die
Caring for the FutureNorthern Exposure: The Canadian Experiment
Taking Health Care Off the National Agenda--The Failure to Answer the Wake-Up Call
References
Index
About the author
ARNOLD BIRENBAUM is Professor of Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and the author of 11 books.
