The private sector surges forward while Government stalls
By Terry Howell, Ed.D. (February 18, 2020)Did you realize healthcare costs went up 250% over the last 20 years while everything else went up only 50% on average? Do you know why? What can be done?
Plenty! For anyone who is interested, and all of us should be, here are some excellent resources detailing what is going on in healthcare and why it needs to be disrupted (i.e. reformed) in a big way.
I especially like Dave Chase’s book and Ted Talk about how it is being disrupted by self-insured employers (see below). And then, of course, there is always our book, Healthcare is Killing US: The Power of Disruptive Innovation to Create a System that Cares More and Costs Less (Aaron Fausz, PhD and Terry Howell, EdD) https://www.healthcareiskillingus.com/
The Good News – there are already MANY industry insiders who have figured out how to play The New Game, and they’re all willing to collaborate with you to help you win. If you read or scan one book on how The Game is being played by the current players, make it this one: Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Healthcare. By Marty Makary, MD.
Other very useful resources include:
Overtreated: Why too much medicine is making us Sicker and Poorer. By Shannon Brownlee. Ms. Brownlee, a founder of The Right Care Alliance, dismantles the myths surrounding our current model that result in us spending far too much and getting way too little. She also offers practical ways to reduce overtreatment and redirect those resources to better health.
Is Healthcare is already fixed? It is! Check it out at The Health Rosetta by Dave Chase. Includes a good summary TEDx Talk and the eBook The CEO’s Guide to Restoring the American Dream: How to Deliver World-Class Healthcare to Your Employees at Half the Cost. There Dave demonstrates how self-insured employers can change the fundamental economics to the benefit of their employees’ quality of life and pocketbooks.
This one was distilled into the longest article ever published in Newsweek. For good reason. America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix our Broken Healthcare System, by Steven Brill. It highlights the rampant abuses and profiteering in America’s largest and most dysfunctional sector of the economy.
Think drug prices are high because they’re investing so much to research miraculous new cures? Ah, no. Think again. The Truth about Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. by Marcia Angell, MD. Dr. Angell has unique insights after 20yrs at the New England Journal of Medicine with a ringside seat as drug companies gained nearly limitless influence over medical research, education and how doctors prescribe. Hint – their behaviors were not primarily driven by what’s best for patients.
© 2020 Richfield Press. All rights reserved.
The author can be followed at:
Terry-howell@sbcglobal.net
