Books : Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.10425
EAN: 9780312383015
ISBN: 0312383010
Label: Thomas Dunne Books
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: February 19, 2008
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Release Date: February 19, 2008
Sales Rank: 126
Studio: Thomas Dunne Books
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A much-needed and hard-hitting plan, from one of the great Democratic minds of our time, to reform America’s broken health-care system.
Undoubtedly, the biggest domestic policy issue in the coming years will be America’s health-care system. Millions of Americans go without medical care because they can’t afford it, and many others are mired in debt because they can’t pay their medical bills. It’s hard to think of another public policy problem that has lingered unaddressed for so long. Why have we failed to solve a problem that is such a high priority for so many citizens?
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle believes the problem is rooted in the complexity of the health-care issue and the power of the interest groups—doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug companies, researchers, patient advocates—that have a direct stake in it. Rather than simply pointing out the major flaws and placing blame, Daschle offers key solutions and creates a blueprint for solving the crisis.
Daschle’s solution lies in the Federal Reserve Board, which has overseen the equally complicated financial system with great success. A Fed-like health board would offer a public framework within which a private health-care system can operate more effectively and efficiently—insulated from political pressure yet accountable to elected officials and the American people. Daschle argues that this independent board would create a single standard of care and exert tremendous influence on every other provider and payer, even those in the private sector.
After decades of failed incremental measures, the American health-care system remains fundamentally broken and requires a comprehensive fix. With his bold and forward-looking plan, Daschle points us to the solution.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
This book is more about his self interests and promoting his career then about healthcare. He believes that our answer for healthcare is to insert a "unbiased" politically appointed board of doctors and economists between you and your doctor. There are already standards of care and government published guidelines. Having a new government entity publishing another set is redundant and not needed. Also, standards of care are to ensure that the lowest level of care is given not the highest. So with the new board they will reduce care for you to the lowest level necessary in order to save money and that everyone is the same. Those with money or good health insurance will lose benefits because he wants to punish doctors for providing above the standard level of care. He views this as wasteful and not needed.
There are numerous issues that affect the level and quality of heathcare that is given in America. His book only offers a short simplistic answer for how he wants government to grow, not for how to provide quality healthcare to American citizens.
Rating:  -
Tom Daschle's proposed 'Federal Health Board' would infuse paternalism into our current cost-inefficient health-care system. It stops short of regulation. Daschle is very mindful of the Clinton administration's failed attempt at reform in the '90s. He does not want to fail again. He wants to craft reform that has a chance of passage in Congress. In closing, on page 205, he says, "I have strong views on what an 'ideal' system would look like. But I'm not willing to sacrifice worthy improvements on the altar of perfection."
This is a very readable book. Some chapters are only *three* pages long.
Rating:  -
Among westernized nations, America is an anomaly. We do not guarantee health care for our citizens. And we've convinced ourselves that the 'every person fend for themselves' approach is more than adequate.
But incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Daschle explains why America cannot continue pulling the wool over its eyes.
In this book, the former Senator convincingly argues that we need fundamental health care reform which provides all people with the quality of health care currently given to federal employees.
Wait; you're probably asking yourself, wasn't health care reform previously attempted? Yes, but since the early 1990's, the numbers of the uninsured have merely skyrocketed. The need for health care reform has not at all gone away.
Against the bankruptcy-inducing realities of people having to pay out of pocket for their necessary and life-saving medical procedures, the 'stressful paperwork' commercials then aired by the American Medical Association look almost comedic. To think having to write on lines of paper once scared the American voter who could now loose their home!
Aware of this and other horror stories, Daschle's plan is very pragmatic. Recognizing the U.S. medical care system as mediocre, he would overhaul Medicaid and open up the federal health insurance group policy to others.
Setting up a Federal Health Board appears to be his attempt to rid the country of the 'pre ... Read More
Rating: -
Tom Daschle gives a good review of where health care reform legislation has failed in the past half century and has a very reasoned explanation for why the US needs the equivalent of the Federal Reserve Board for 21st century health care. Recommended for all those interested in the future of the US health care system
Rating: -
The subtitle of this book should be "How we can achieve complete federal control of health care while we fool voters into not realizing what we're doing."
Daschle spends the first three quarters of the book trying to build the case for total health care reform - it didn't take me long before I was skimming and thinking "alright, alright, I get it, so what do you want to do about it?" He finally makes it to his destination and his plans are interesting, especially since we look likely to follow them soon. However, there is one glaring flaw - I kept wondering, "how does he plan to pay for this?" and the answer is, he doesn't. He just does some hand waving, says it will all be made up in "greater efficiencies" or something and figures it will all work out. Once you take out the need to pay for something, I can probably come up with a hundred plans as good or better than this one.
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