Book Description
Univ. of California, San Francisco. Concise text for medical students, residents, and practitioners on the U.S. health care system. Discusses changes, illness prevention , costs, insurance, quality of care, and more. Seven chapters were previously published as articles in the Journal of American Medicine, from 1994-1996. Softcover.

Synopsis
A concise, clinically oriented introduction to a topic of growing importance and visibility--the structure and function of the U.S. healthcare system. Case examples illustrate fundamental topics such as containment, health insurance, primary care, and physician and hospital payment--and vividly ties policy issues to the practice of medicine.

Dr. Quentin Young, PNHP National Coordinator
"Eloquently and comprehensively, Universal Healthcare gives the history, the politics and the results of the health system most popular in the world among its beneficiaries - Canada's medicare.  A must read."

From Book News, Inc.
This book advocates switching the US system over to a system of universal coverage similar to Canada's. The authors look at the five principles at the core of the Canadian approach: in order to be federally funded, provincial governments must ensure that hospital care and medical care are universal, accessible, comprehensive, portable, and publicly administered. The book then examines the specific mechanisms that bring these principles into practice. Comparisons to the US system are provided throughout. Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR

Profit Fever: The Drive to Corporatize Health Care and How to Stop It
By Charles Andrews
Published by Common Courage Press (May 1995)
ISBN: 1567510566   Number of pages: 150
Full Retail Price: $11.95

From Booklist
Andrews is an advocate of single-payer health-care coverage and was active in the failed 1994 California Proposition 186 campaign to make the single-payer plan law. It is from this point of view that he provides a history of health insurance in the U.S. and argues that medicine has evolved from a profession into an industry. He compares health care in this country with that of other countries, particularly the much-cited Canadian system; and he looks at the failure of health reform plans in Congress. Half his book, though, is devoted to an explanation of the voter-initiated California Health Security Act (Proposition 186), an analysis of the intense lobbying campaign against it, and a discussion of the lessons health-care reform activists can learn from its defeat. Because this is a question that will not soon be settled, libraries would do well to acquire as much material on all sides of the issue as they can. David Rouse

Health Against Wealth: HMOs and the Breakdown of Medical Trust
By George Anders
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company (May 1998)
ISBN: 0395822823   Number of pages: 304   
Full Retail Price: $15.00

If you have ever sought pre-approval for a necessary medical treatment, or have had problems arranging appointments with a specialist, or have seen a personal-care physician transferred to a distant clinic, George Anders's book on the growth of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) will confirm your worst fears. A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Anders provides a series of horrifying case studies: a six-month-old baby who loses his hands and feet after a 42-mile journey to an HMO-approved emergency room; residents of a small town in Tennessee afflicted with an outbreak of a painful bowel infection who find that the drugs needed to suppress the epidemic are not covered; HMOs that select hospitals with low success rates for heart-bypass operations because of cost factors. Anders presents a powerful indictment of the emerging managed-care model for our national health-care system in this disturbing book.

Clear Answers: the Economics and Politics of For-Profit Medicine
By Kevin Taft, Gillian Steward
Published by University of Alberta Press (March 2000)
ISBN: 1552200833   Number of pages: 128
Full Retail Price: $9.95

David Himmelstein, Harvard Medical School
"A powerful indictment of the profit-driven care that is now being foisted on the people of Alberta--and Canada."