Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer

13 Responses to “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer”

1. 

   Anonymous
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   
   Healthcare reform plays a foremost role in discussions and the media today, but it is confusing, overwhelming, dull and seemingly unsolvable to most people. Howard Dean presents the problems and solutions in plain language in his new book, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. For Dr. Dean’s appearance schedule please visit the publisher’s website.

   Hear someone utter the word Healthcare and the emotion that rises up and continues to spiral nearly out of hegemony is rage. Dean writes, “according to a contemporary report from the Focal point for American Progress, in March 2009 alone nearly 11,000 workers a day lost their shape insurance.” Do the math and the rage turns to outrage – 341,000 people lost their shape insurance in a 31-day period.

   There are “47 million Americans who don’t have shape insurance. But the healthcare debate should also focus on the fact that 25 million working-aged Americans have shape insurance but still cannot’ afford to see a doctor,” states Dean in his introduction. Terrifying statistics compounded by information from the Commonwealth Fund, “many go without needed care, not filling prescriptions, and not following up on recommended treatment.”

   Howard Dean is eminently qualified to write about healthcare reform for several reasons. He is graduated from Yale in 1971 with a BA in Political Knowledge. He received his medical degree from Columbia University during which he spent one month at the American Medical Association following Senators Jacob Javits and Ted Kennedy as they attempted to make a healthcare bill during President Carter’s first term. His was voted the first Democratic Governor of Vermont since 1853. His hard work during his Governorship insured that 99% of Vermont citizens under the age of 18 had access to healthcare coverage, expanded prenatal care, community shape centers and dental clinics in schools serving low-income children.

   But it is his one simple statement at the end of the preface that says it all. “All change grows from the grass roots. Real healthcare reform won’t happen without you.” He is clearly directing his thoughts at the everyman/woman – he is writing for the people who need healthcare insurance or agonize that their insurance will come to an end due to loss of job or steep rate increases.

   Dean clarifies, finally a politician that realizes what the people want to hear and how they want to hear it, the difference between healthcare reform and shape insurance reform. “So, the real debate about healthcare reform is not a debate about how large a role government should play. The real issue is: Should we give Americans under the age of sixty-five the same scale we give Americans over sixty-five? Should we give all Americans a scale of opting out of the private shape insurance system and benefitting from a broadcast shape insurance plot?”

   He further states, brilliantly making his point absolutely current, “Americans ought to be able to choose for themselves: Is private shape insurance really shape insurance? Or is it simply an extension of thing that have been happening on Wall Street over the past five to ten years, in which private corporations find yet new and ingenious ways of taking cash from ordinary citizens without charitable them the air force they’ve paid for?” Does the Madoff ponzi scheme ring a bell here? Cash invested with absolutely no restore on investment not to mention complete loss of all assets. Who hasn’t paid for insurance month after month and not received coverage when they needed it the most?

   Dean details the profit vs. care issue and succinctly discusses the problems with private, for-profit insurances companies that “must meet two obligations that are often mutually exclusive.” These private behemoths are responsible for maximizing profits for their shareholders while shouldering the responsibility for excellent service to their customers. Is this even possible given the way private shape insurance companies are structured coupled with the lobbyists who ensure that they have more or less free-reign with blatant disregard for the welfare of their enrollees.

   Chapters cover the trials of small business owners and individuals and uses real-life examples to drive home the point. He strongly states that “America most budge from an illness-based healthcare system to a wellness-based model.” He writes of the necessity to change the national lifestyle toward one of prevention and healthier living. A goal that neither political have fun nor business or individuals could argue with – who wouldn’t want to be healthy?

   Dean covers the challenges briefly but completely and spends a excellent part of the book providing solutions. “Americans need real healthcare reform, not just insurance reform, and nobody should mistake the two,” he states. “Real healthcare reform should offer coverage to the employed, the unemployed, the sick, the healthy, the young, the ancient. Everyone.”

   He puts forth five sound and achievable principles that “real healthcare reform must contain.” Everybody In, Nobody Out; No more Healthcare Bankruptcies: Take it to Go; Choose or Lose and Improved Care, Quality and Efficiency. He reviews President Obama’s healthcare initiative; how to hegemony costs; rising a revenue spill to pay for the initiative; and “who’s been permanent in the way.”

   Dean avows that change is possible through the citizens, calling for change and action. He writes of how this affects people in different walks of life and details, “What you deserve, and should fight for.” He staunchly recommends how citizens can and should take action; educate themselves; contact their local and national officials; contact corporations and organizations and keep the exchange going until change happens.

   The last sentence makes Dean’s position clear, “Fights like this are won by ordinary people who choose that they care enough about something to fight for it.” Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform should be required reading for every American over the age of 18. This is the most comprehensive and accessible presentation of a situation that deeply affects each one of us.

   About the author:

   Physician Howard Dean is the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He served six stipulations as Governor of Vermont and ran for the Democratic Have fun’s presidential nomination in 2004. Dean founded, Democracy for America, a grassroots try that organizes community activists, trains staff and endorses progressive candidates.
2. 

   Sylvana
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   3.0 out of 5 stars
   Read this book, but then seek what’s missing
   I recommend reading the book for a couple of reasons, but don’t expect your enhanced perspective to be as developed as needed to completely weigh-in on an optimal reform try…
3. 

   Biton
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   3.0 out of 5 stars
   Opinionated and Fact-Filled Book
   Howard Dean takes a viewpoint about shape care and clearly want to see a government option. Whether you agree or disagree on philosophical or dogmatic grounds, this is…
4. 

   Gurit
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Curriculum (What’s this?)

   Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer

   I thought I was a small smarter than the average bear when it came to understanding healthcare reform, since I worked in employee benefits for more than 10 years in the 70s and 80s when cost-containment (but not yet issues of denied coverage) had just become a foremost issue. But, I still learned quite a bit from Dr. Dean’s book about the past history of healthcare reform, what is included in Obama’s plot, and what other countries do. I highlighted huge parts to quote for my blog on healthcare reform.

   Though observably place together quickly, including a few typos and awkward sentences, it is still quite fascinating and simple to read. At the same time, I’d say it is as objective as it needs to be in this fight that has turned into a shouting match. When opponents of reform are spouting outright lies–which they are–there isn’t room for much deference. On the other hand, what some are touting as a plot from the far left, really pays fantastic homage to our free enterprise system. Dean repeats over and over that Americans wouldn’t accept a plot without scale, though I’m not so sure that is right.

   But, as originally a passionate advocate of single payer, I was amazed to learn that most of the countries providing complete healthcare are not single payer but a system of competing private plans with guaranteed coverage and community rating with most either providing some form of broadcast option for those who can’t afford private coverage or a mandate on what private insurers can payment. As I can’t see anyone in this country accepting regulation of what a private insurer can payment as premiums, the broadcast option now appears to me as the most reasonable way to go.

   I was a small vague on how much of what Dean outlines is really part of the Obama reform plot and how much is what he, Dr. Dean, want to see. But there’s no doubt that, as a physician and former governor who successfully reformed Vermont’s healthcare system, he is knowledgeable on the theme and his thoughts should be considered seriously.

   Even if you reckon you already know where you stand on this theme, I recommend you read this book. It could change your mind.
5. 

   Fantasia
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   A Reasoned and Well-Clarified Approach to Shape Care Reform
   Perhaps the defining issue of the first year of President Barak Obama’s administration is not the economy or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan–all still deeply vital–but shape…
6. 

   Usra
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   Informative and timely
   Many political facts in the shape care debate are far removed from the actual manner of speaking of air force.
7. 

   Anonymous
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   Read, then DO SOMETHING
   Senators and Representatives, Republicans and so-called Blue Dog Democrats, bought by Insurance companies and pharmaceutical conglomerates, are out to kill any and all bills…
8. 

   Madan
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Curriculum (What’s this?)

   So that you know my point of view: I’m a 56 year ancient family physician that has practiced on Indian reservations, in clinics that cater exclusively to Medicare and Medicaid patients, and for the last 14 years, in a private practice group of eight doctors in a small town in Central Oregon.

   Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform is an even-handed, even-tempered, well researched investigation of what options we Americans face regarding the future of healthcare in our country. With none of the stridency of either the free market advocates or the single payor systems devotees, Dean lays out some indisputable facts, and offers thoughtful solutions to decreasing costs. Here are some basics, all of which have been documented thoroughly elsewhere: the United States spends 15% of its Combined Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare, 50% higher than what our allies France and Canada spend, 40% higher than what Switzerland spends. For this, we get a product that is ranked last in quality, access, efficiency, and shape of citizens as compared to our European and Canadian counterparts. This isn’t a liberal problem, or a conservative problem. It’s a humiliating problem for a physician like myself that takes pride in my country and my profession. And it’s a problem that I seeing play out in real life every day that I show up to work. It flies in the face of our image of ourselves as a can do, innovative people.

   Dean’s small (115 pages of honestly large print) book is a bit dry, reading somewhat like a lengthy colorless paper on healthcare reform. Dense in information, engaged but not enraged, Dean lays out solutions that have worked internationally much better than our own haphazard approach to national healthcare, yet solutions that Americans might improve upon with our hallmark ingenuity, inventiveness, and commitment to competition in the marketplace. He does NOT advocate a single payor system, he DOES insist that we need a “government based option”. Option, as in Dean’s belief that Americans insist on scale, and his belief that a single payor option that would compel Americans to belong is a non-starter.

   If you’re an archetypal “bleeding heart liberal”, you’ll get small sympathy from Dean: he’s a pragmatist that bluntly advocates a practical approach to excellent bang for the buck healthcare for all. If you’re a free market fanatic, you’ll find out why the captains of industry (e.g. automakers) are crying “Uncle!” or “Uncle Sam!” to get out from under the $1400 per car cost of their employee shape insurance. You’ll also find out that Medicare spends about 10% of its revenue on administration, versus double that in the private insurance industry, and achieves markedly better results than private industry shape care insurance.

   In small, Dean’s book provides a useful framework for the debate regarding what to do about an overly expensive, poorly performing, industry injuring, shape care system, regardless of your political persuasion.

   Am I willing to take a personal hit in my paycheck as a physician to see reform come to the U.S? You betcha, as in yesterday. Especially if they force me to take the salary those poor primary care blokes in the United Kingdom make: $220K/year. Which is roughly TWICE what I make here in rural U.S.A. )
9. 

   Anonymous
   

   23. Aug, 2009

   5.0 out of 5 stars
   Anyone against shape care reform should read this book
   If I had not gotten the book for free from Amazon Vine, I would have stopped reading at page 25 because I was convinced.
10. 

    Anonymous
    

    23. Aug, 2009

    3.0 out of 5 stars
    Not Rigorous or Convincing
    The book did not place my questions about shape care reform to rest. Some of the sections seemed like superficial politician-talk.
11. 

    Bima
    

    23. Aug, 2009

    3.0 out of 5 stars
    Where’s the Dental?
    I was very impressed with this book, and I did not expect to be so impressed with a book that seemed to be more of a summary but the information is presented in a concise and…
12. 

    Lajos
    

    23. Aug, 2009

    2.0 out of 5 stars
    An extended speech
    Books like this are not intended to persuade people who might disagree with its premises. They’re intended to excite a base of supporters, and to arm them with talking points…
13. 

    Fidelma
    

    23. Aug, 2009

    5.0 out of 5 stars
    A scale pick for those looking for opinions on the Complete Healthcare debate
    Is cheaper medical care for Americans a possible reality or just some crazy dream? “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical…