Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Chilling." The Washington Post
"Investigative journalism at it's best." The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A staff writer for the explains how the cost-cutting measures taken by health maintenance organizations can thwart necessary life-saving treatment. He explains why managed care is so appealing to employers and insurers, and how profit-hungry entrepreneurs have swarmed into the industry and manipulated legislation and regulation with powerful lobbying." Booknews, Inc.
Synopsis
The HMO system is often praised for cutting runaway costs. It is supposed to act as a powerful market force to stop greedy doctors and hospitals from treating patients like pi-atas, to be cut open for profit. Health Against Wealth reveals that when you are confronting cancer, heart disease, or psychiatric illness, when you face a medical emergency or your child requires complex pediatric surgery, all those cost-saving rules and artful ways of keeping doctors frugal can turn against you. Wall Street Journal reporter George Anders explains why " managed care " is so appealing to employers and insurers and how HMO bureaucrats can thwart necessary, even life-saving treatment under the guise of cost efficiency. Health Against Wealth takes an unflinching look at the profit-hungry entrepreneurs who have poured into this new" health industry" and provides alarming examples of political manipulation by increasingly powerful HMO lobbyists. At the same time, the book explores the hopes and frustr
Synopsis
The HMO system is supposed to stop greedy doctors and hospitals from viewing patients as sources of profit. But Health Against Wealth reveals that when you are confronting a medical emergency, the HMO system's cost-saving rules can jeopardize your life. This book, said the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is a "chilling portrait of the many ways in which HMOs can be hazardous to your health."
About the Author
George Anders, senior special writer for the Wall Street Journal, was part of a team that won the Puliter Prize for it's health coverage in 1996. The author of Merchants of Debt, he lives in California.