by John P. Geyman, M.D. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2002
John P. Geyman, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Family Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle:
“It is easy to become discouraged by the lack of real progress toward structural reform in our ailing health care system after at least 20 years’ failure of the competitive marketplace approach. How much more time should be given to the experiment, and what real signs are there that it could yet work? The answers, in my view, are none and none. The stakeholders in the present system persist in their optimistic claims that the private sector marketplace will sort out the system’s problems, but all the evidence is to the contrary. We have a multitiered health care system that is not sustainable. It is filled with inequities and waste and falls far short of what is possible and needed for the nation. Corporatization of health care now dominates the health care landscape and has become the problem rather than a solution.”
Comment: In “Health Care in America,” Dr. Geyman has masterfully assembled the current literature on the status of our health care system, especially its failures in access, quality, and cost containment. It is a sad story.
But then he discusses the options available. Quoting Dr. Geyman, “Both near-term and long-term scenarios are unhealthy unless incrementalism is abandoned as ineffective and a national effort launched toward systemic reform. Some oxen in the commons oppose that level of reform and need to be gored (even if a sacred cow) if they stand in the way of the reform required to assure universal access to cost-effective care of the best quality achievable within available resources.”
“Health Care in America” is an excellent resource for organizing thoughts and updating our perceptions of the health care system in the United States. It is also an invaluable academic reference for facts about our ailing system. Information on this text is available at the website of the publisher, Butterworth-Heinemann: