An American Sickness

How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back

By: Elisabeth Rosenthal

Narrated by: Nancy Linari

Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Award-winning New York Times reporter Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal reveals the dangerous, expensive, and dysfunctional American health-care system and tells us exactly what we can do to solve its myriad of problems.

It is well documented that our health-care system has grave problems, but how, in only a matter of decades, did things get this bad? Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms; she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. Rosenthal spells out in clear and practical terms exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship, explaining step by step the workings of a profession sorely lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate a byzantine system and also to demand far-reaching reform.

Breaking down the monolithic business into its individual industries - the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, drug manufacturers - that together constitute our health-care system, Rosenthal tells the story of the history of American medicine as never before. The situation is far worse than we think, and it has become like that much more recently than we realize. Hospitals, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Americans are dying from routine medical conditions when affordable and straightforward solutions exist.

Dr. Rosenthal explains for the first time how various social and financial incentives have encouraged a disastrous and immoral system to spring up organically in a shockingly short span of time. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a health-care system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

©2017 Elisabeth Rosenthal (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"An eye opening discussion ... [An] important book.... Rosenthal told an interviewer her goal was to 'start a very loud conversation' that will be 'difficult politically to ignore.' We need such a conversation - not just about how the market fails, but about how we can change the political realities that stand in the way of fixing it.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“In this in-depth analysis of a malfunctioning system, Rosenthal makes a compelling case against the hospital and pharmaceutical executives behind the 'money chase,' and it’s hard to imagine a more educated, credible guide...The patients she interviewed share mind-boggling stories...She builds her case with one damning statistic after another...Rosenthal presents solutions both personal and societal in this commanding and necessary call to arms.” (Booklist [starred])

"Provocatively analyzes...Rosenthal unveils with surgical precision the 'dysfunctional medical market'...a startling cascade.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])

Dense but informative. Skip the first half.

The first half is informative of all the problems in the health care industry but is extremely depressing and offers no solutions. The second half of the book contains all the solutions to the problems referenced in the first half, and I will be buying it in paperback in order to refer to them more often. I just wish the book was organized differently. You can basically skip the entire first half.

Everyone should read this book!

The healthcare system is too complex and very few understand what is going on. I’ve always been interested in the topic and have followed up on it, but this book gives a great overview and techniques everyone should use to control their healthcare spend. Been using a lot of them myself and the results in savings are well worth it, even though they can be time consuming and frustrating.

There needs to be a better way!

Absolute Must Read

Everyone should read this book. Not only to have a great understanding of how players in the healthcare industry abuse the patients with outrageous billing but more importantly what patients can do to fight back. Highly recommended

Every American should read this book... period

If you are old and on a fixed income, if you are mid career with great insurance, if you are young and hoping to shape a healthcare system for your future, you must read this book. Wow, rosenthal describes to a tee how we got it not this health care mess and great suggestions on how to survive it and perhaps get out of it.

All the news I never wanted to know but need to

I have been recommending this book to anyone who will listen. I plan to buy a hardcopy for reference.

Boring!

Too long. Too much information. Convoluted. Not well written. I could not make it very far.

Health care education

This book covers aspects of health care that I already thought to be true. To know that someone put the effort in to reaching and providing evidence let’s me know I am not crazy.

I have worked for one of the big insurance carriers and have seen first hand how the high cost of insurance and the high cost of medical services has done a disservice to the American people all across the country.

This book is a great tool to start educating the American people.

Education is power

Shocking story that could've had a better narrator

This is a must-listen for anyone paying for medical insurance in the United States. The story is shocking and it's sickening to hear how the American healthcare industry is just so wrong on every level. The narrator is a little dull though, considering the content that she's reading, but it's still worth a listen to learn how so many Americans get hit with unexpected medical bills.

Outstanding summary of our current healthcare situation

A must read for every American to better understand the issues stakeholders and patients face, how we got to this current situation, and why politicians are in a standoff over a solution that will work to keep cost down while providing high quality patient care. Very timely and a much needed release.

learned a lot!

great book, I haven't read anything like it before. definitely recommend to anyone looking to understand the healthcare system better.