Here are 100 books that The Quality Cure fans have personally recommended if you like
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My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
Eminently readable, this is a classic book by the doyen of American health economics that explains in non-technical terms the economics of health and medical care. It has been updated with several essays that Fuchs has published in the almost five decades since the book was first published.
Since the first edition of Who Shall Live? (1974), over 100,000 students, teachers, physicians, and general readers from more than a dozen fields have found this book to be a reader-friendly, authoritative introduction to economic concepts applied to health and medical care.Health care is by far the largest industry in the United States. It is three times larger than education and five times as large as national defense. In 2001, Americans spent over $12,500 per person for hospitals, physicians, drugs and other health care services and goods. Other high-income democracies spend one third less, enjoy three more years of life…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
Another classic book that describes the history of American medicine and organized medicine’s interactions with the political process.
It is necessary background to understand the predominance of employment-based health insurance and why the 2010 Affordable Care Act was such a breakthrough. Starr is a Princeton sociologist who participated in the 1990s debate on the failed Clinton health insurance plan.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, The Social Transformation of American Medicine is a landmark history of the American health care system, examining how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. Beginning in 1730 and coming up to the present day, renowned sociologist Paul Starr traces the transformation of our national health care system into a private corporate medical institution that dominates the field and threatens the sovereignty of the medical profession. In this new and revised edition, Paul Starr will bring his research…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
In individual chapters, this book describes every American President’s approach to health policy from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush (it omits Gerald Ford).
It describes their personal and familial interactions with health and medical care as well as their foibles and habits. It is a fascinating read, especially for those of an age who personally lived through some of these Presidents.
Even the most powerful men in the world are human - they get sick, take dubious drugs, drink too much, contemplate suicide, fret about ailing parents, and bury people they love. Young Richard Nixon watched two brothers die of tuberculosis, even while doctors monitored a suspicious shadow on his own lungs. John Kennedy received last rites four times as an adult, and Lyndon Johnson suffered a 'belly buster' of a heart attack. David Blumenthal and James A. Morone explore how modern presidents have wrestled with their own mortality - and how they have taken this most human experience to heart…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
This book, by three eminent economists who themselves have advanced the theory of insurance markets, describes in non-technical terms exactly what its title promises, why insurance markets fail.
In other words, it describes why public intervention is necessary to make insurance function well. The public intervention can take many forms, ranging from subsidies to national health services, but no industrialized country leaves health insurance entirely to a private market.
An engaging and accessible examination of what ails insurance markets-and what to do about it-by three leading economists
Why is dental insurance so crummy? Why is pet insurance so expensive? Why does your auto insurer ask for your credit score? The answer to these questions lies in understanding how insurance works. Unlike the market for other goods and services-for instance, a grocer who doesn't care who buys the store's broccoli or carrots-insurance providers are more careful in choosing their customers, because some are more expensive than others.
Unraveling the mysteries of insurance markets, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Ray Fisman…
Born and raised in the Chicago area, I worked in the automotive industry as a car salesperson and racing team manager, financial services as a Registered Representative, and a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. An expat in Panama since 2004, I worked in business development for several healthcare products and co-founded an air medical transport service. Over the last decade, I’ve represented two businesses delivering protective medical care to high-net-worth individuals where I learned care’s gold standard from former White House physicians. My research included the books I recommend here and inspired me to write the Expat Health Guide for current and future expats.
Ever hear of MLR or Medical Loss Ratio? I had, but it didn’t click why it was a cruel joke on American healthcare consumers until I read Marshall’s book. His give a kid a bowl of ice cream analogy is so spot on that I asked for and received his permission to quote it in my book. My dad used to say that a sure sign of genius is making a complex subject understandable to an eighth grader. Marshall’s a genius. His insights stem from over 15 years of investigative reporting on the healthcare industry are critical to combatting a downright evil billing system. Whenever a friend mentions they’ve been in the hospital, or will be, I tell them to read this book.
From award-winning ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen, a primer for anyone who wants to fight the predatory health care system--and win.
Every year, millions of Americans are overcharged and underserved while the health care industry makes record profits. We know something is wrong, but the layers of bureaucracy designed to discourage complaints make pushing back seem impossible. At least, this is what the health care power players want you to think.
Never Pay the First Bill is the guerilla guide to health care the American people and employers need. Drawing on 15 years of investigating the health care industry, reporter Marshall…
Born and raised in the Chicago area, I worked in the automotive industry as a car salesperson and racing team manager, financial services as a Registered Representative, and a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. An expat in Panama since 2004, I worked in business development for several healthcare products and co-founded an air medical transport service. Over the last decade, I’ve represented two businesses delivering protective medical care to high-net-worth individuals where I learned care’s gold standard from former White House physicians. My research included the books I recommend here and inspired me to write the Expat Health Guide for current and future expats.
Dr. Makary begins with an almost unreal story of a French citizen who had the unfortunate luck of having a heart attack in the US. I won’t give it away, but used car dealers come out smelling like roses, and I did that for a while, back in my youth. Such a lesson. Americans sorely need perspective on what great care is and how to pay for it. Dr. Makary does a fantastic job outlining two little-known middlemen sucking money out of American wallets. Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Group Purchasing Organizations. Both use tactics that would make Tony Soprano smile.
What I love about this book, and why I recommend it, is while spotlighting problems, he offers solutions, and spotlights people making a difference.
"A must-read for every American and business leader." --Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES
From the New York Times bestselling author of Unaccountable comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system--and the people who are saving it.
One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture…
I am a doctor who is lucky enough to have worked in many countries with many people. I wanted to do this ever since I read Albert Sweitzer’s biography when I was about thirteen. I enrolled in medicine as a single parent in my thirties, then built up experience in emergency departments, pediatrics, obstetrics, remote area locum work, and a year in a hospice before beginning my career overseas. Being a doctor was, at one and the same time, exhilarating and terrifying, heartbreaking and absolutely filled with joy. The more I was able to connect to my patients, the more I loved every moment of my work. I hope the books on this list will give that same gift to you.
I absolutely loved the simplicity and clarity of this approach.
It’s almost the opposite end of the spectrum to my first selection and a method that I found more and more common over the years of my career: checklists and flowcharts for the serious and frequent presentations in the Emergency Department, in the operating theatre, and at Triage. And Gawande was right: they did and do save lives.
More generally, I used this process all the time when I was training other staff in my posts with Doctors Without Borders. Preventing and avoiding problems with fail-safe systems is so much better than trying to solve them after they occur!
In his latest bestseller, Atul Gawande shows what the simple idea of the checklist reveals about the complexity of our lives and how we can deal with it.
The modern world has given us stupendous know-how. Yet avoidable failures continue to plague us in health care, government, the law, the financial industry—in almost every realm of organized activity. And the reason is simple: the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people—consistently, correctly, safely. We train longer, specialize more, use ever-advancing technologies, and still we fail. Atul Gawande makes a…
I spent nearly 30 years consulting with employers about the design and operation of the health insurance and retirement benefits they provided their workers. In my work, I was familiar with economic studies showing that workers’ wages and salaries have been increasingly skewed toward higher earners and was convinced the results were less pronounced for workers' total rewards.. In developing my analysis I came to understand that the cost of employees’ health insurance was consuming a large share of workers’ growing rewards. This led me to explore how the US health system was imposing much higher costs on workers than any other segment of society and how we might address the problem.
One prevailing theory about the high cost of U.S. health care compared to other highly developed nations is that the prices charged for goods and services are simply higher in the United States and elsewhere.
Reinhardt is one of the leading proponents of this school of thought and this book summarizes his reasoning on the subject and how to deal with it.
From a giant of health care policy, an engaging and enlightening account of why American health care is so expensive-and why it doesn't have to be
Uwe Reinhardt was a towering figure and moral conscience of health care policy in the United States and beyond. Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of the U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country,…
As a cancer doctor, I have spent two decades dedicated to understanding the causes and therapy of cancer, how my patients experience their diagnosis and treatment, and how meaningful improvements in their experience should be reflected in the criteria we use to approve cancer drugs approval in the U.S., to improve their lives. In over 100 essays published in outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post and in two books, I sing the stories of my patients as I learn from their undaunted spirits and their utter humanity, as I try to figure out how to be a better doctor, and a better person.
Nobody is perfect. But in medicine, not being perfect can cause injury in another person, or even death.
In When We Do Harm, Ofri tells the stories of patients who fell victim to medical errors, conducting root-cause analyses of how errors occur in the complicated practice of medicine, and the mundane interventions and cultural shift that will be necessary to prevent them in the future.
Medical mistakes are more pervasive than we think. How can we improve outcomes? An acclaimed MD’s rich stories and research explore patient safety.
Patients enter the medical system with faith that they will receive the best care possible, so when things go wrong, it’s a profound and painful breach. Medical science has made enormous strides in decreasing mortality and suffering, but there’s no doubt that treatment can also cause harm, a significant portion of which is preventable. In When We Do Harm, practicing physician and acclaimed author Danielle Ofri places the issues of medical error and patient safety front and…
Anna Malaika Tubbs is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of MLK Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. She is also a Cambridge Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and a Bill and Melinda Gates Cambridge Scholar. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a BA in Anthropology, Anna received a Master’s from the University of Cambridge in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies. Outside of the academy, she is an educator and DEI consultant. She lives with her husband, Michael Tubbs, and their son Michael Malakai.
A crucial read not only for understanding the unique obstacles facing Black birthing parents but also for celebrating the work of organizers who have fought for our reproductive justice. This book explains how key moments in history have led to where we are today and fills gaps of understanding that many have when it comes to Black maternal health.
There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and…
