An American Sickness

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

By: Elisabeth Rosenthal

Narrated by: Nancy Linari

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])

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.

Information packed

An enlightening investigation into healthcare practices for both healthcare consumers and healthcare providers. As a person who wears both of these hats I found this book informative and also angering as healthcare has become more about profit than quality care. It is not light reading and it's focus is heavily on what is wrong with the current state of healthcare (and offers advice on how to better it personally and nationally). Highly recommended read for healthcare consumers and professionals.

Good book. Sickening details.

This book covers everything from humble beginnings to the nightmare we have today. Brutal real-life examples and ways to possibly fix this are included. You may want to listen to this if you are considering moving to the US from a country with a more cost-effective healthcare system. Every chapter felt like I was listening to what a different layer of hell is like. very well written overall and good research and sources. If every American read this book, there would be protests.

A true call to arms against financial abuses

Throughly and masterfully illustrated with recent, ongoing, real life examples of the abuses of the many players in the health care business, this work is an outright unashamed call to arms for us, patients, or consumers, to insurge against every touchable corner of the health care system, its perverse incentives, and its inefficiencies. A well crafted journalistic work from Rosenthal.

Brilliant and enticing

I wish this book was required reading for all college students entering into health care fields. It’s full of wisdom and written in such a way that I felt like I was reading a top selling novel. The system is so corrupt but this book takes the reader to the first step: awareness of the problem.

My favorite book of 2017

must read, utterly disgusting

i am absolutely disgusted with what i have read in this book
it's beyond comprehensible that a system like this is allowed to exist
i'm especially disgusted with so many beyond greedy doctors for whom the Hippocrates Oath is clearly a massive joke
i cannot believe that people in the states actually agree to put up with that
my family and i live in Israel and the health-care system here is incredible compared to the one in the USA
i'm beyond disgusted!!!!!!!!

SICK Healthcare

I have worked in the health care industry for 50 years. Dr. Rosenthal has nailed it. Monies spent for health care are directed to make CEOs and mega insurance carriers and hospitals. Why would anyone want to become a doctor, Nurse Practitioner, etc.
People need to practice preventive health and eat responsibly because NO one can afford chronic care. Very very sad.

A MUST Read

This book truly unwraps the complex and sometimes corrupt financial world of health care. I recommend this book to every person whether medical or not.

A Fascinating Must Read - Is it Onesided?

So much good and fascinating information in this book. I find it to be a must read for almost anyone over 30. We has patients need to be extremely diligent by taking as much control over our healthcare as possible and reasonable. It is not like the good old days when you just trusted everything the hospital and doctor told you and did to you.

Give how much good information is in this book - I did feel there as a major hole in that it was kind of one sided. When I spoke about some of the ideas in this book with some healthcare leaders I work with, they had some things to say that provided a different perspective. So just keep that in mind when reading.