Main description:

As the most substantial health care reform in almost half a century, President Obama's health care overhaul was as historic as it was divisive. In its aftermath, the debate continues.

Drawing on decades of experience in health care policy, health care delivery reform, and economics, Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh provide a non-partisan analysis of the reform and what it means for America and its future. The authors shine a light on truths that have been hidden behind a raucous debate marred by political correctness on both sides of the aisle. They show how health care reform was enacted only with the consent of health insurance companies, drug firms, device manufacturers, hospitals, and other special interests that comprise the medical-industrial complex, which gained millions of new customers with the stroke of a pen. Health care businesses in a market-oriented system are designed to generate revenue, which runs counter to affordable health care.

Gibson and Singh take a broader perspective on health care reform not as a single issue but as part of the economic life of the nation. The national debate unfolded while the banking and financial system teetered on the brink of collapse. The authors trace uncanny similarities between the health care industry and the unfettered banking and financial sector. They argue that a fast-changing global economy will have profound implications for the country's economic security and the jobs and health care benefits that come with it, and they predict that global competition will shape the future of employer-provided insurance more than the health care reform law.

Contents:

Introduction
Part I: Deal Makers, Deal Breakers
Health Insurers: What Did They Get?
The Drug Deal of the Century
Hospitals and Doctors: Their Take-Away
Who Pays for Trillion Dollar Health Reform?
Part II:How Health Care Reform Did Not Reform Health Care
How the AMA Killed the Family Doctor
The Real Reason Hospitals Don't Stop Harming Patients
Hospitals: Do This, Not That
How Health Care Caught the Wall Street Fever
Too Big to Fail Just Got Bigger
If Only They Were IPhones
Part IV: Until Debt Do Us Part
Good-bye Busboys
Promises Made, Promises Broken
Government By Default
Part V: Privatize the Gains, Privatize the Losses
The Real Medical Malpractice Fix
Health Care Fraud: Follow the Money
10 Steps to More Affordable Health Care
References