Main description:

Charles E. Phelps provides a comprehensive look at our health-care system, including how the current system evolved, how the health-care sector behaves, and a detailed analysis of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" parts of the system-from technological advances (the "good") to variations in treatment patterns (the "bad") to hidden costs and perverse incentives (the "ugly"). He shows that much of the cost of health care ultimately derives from our own lifestyle choices and thus that education may well be the most powerful form of health reform we can envision.

Contents:

Foreword by John Raisian
Preface
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER ONE
How Did We Get into this Mess, and Why Will It Get Worse?
CHAPTER TWO
When Is Less Insurance Better than More?
CHAPTER THREE
How Does Good Technology Go Bad? A Tale of Two Cities (and More)
CHAPTER FOUR
Why Is the Employer-Paid Foundation of Health Insurance Riddled with Termites?
CHAPTER FIVE
Do Dollars Distort Doctor's Decisions?
CHAPTER SIX
Why Are We All Killing Ourselves? 105
CHAPTER SEVEN
Why Is Our K-12 Educational System a Public Health Menace?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Where Does the Congress Miss Opportunities and Hit Potholes?
References
About the Author
About the Hoover Institution's Working Group on Health Care Policy
Index