Mismanaged care : how corporate medicine jeopardizes your health /

Makover offers an excellent examination of most aspects of the current US health care delivery system, ending with a plea for a system based on some form of individual medical savings accounts for everyone. He argues for the elimination of insurers and government controls in their present form, based on his belief that rigid rules and protocols are lowering the quality of health care received and, simultaneously, failing to save money. Makover blends decades of personal medical experience with good research and statistics. His style is hortatory and provocative, e.g., asserting with no documentation or references that shockingly poor conditions and care exist at as many as 61 percent of nursing homes. In sum, though not a source one would cite as the authoritative reference for US health data, this is an excellent, well reasoned analysis of the current US health care system and the need for change. A stimulating contribution to the health care debate. All levels. J. E. Allen University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Makeover is a physician who has been practicing and teaching medicine for more than 30 years. He asserts that "real" doctors have been ignored in the debate over healthcare. This book is his personal, heartfelt response to today's system of managed care, which Makeover claims is all about managing cost, not care. He argues that the essence of care is the doctor-patient relationship, which the managed care approach totally ignores. He shows how treatment has declined in recent years and yet costs have not been effectively reduced. While Makeover offers no overall solution, he effectively identifies the failings of the current system and details the qualities an improved system should have. Included is a bibliography and a list of Internet Web sites that will serve as a helpful starting point for anyone looking for additional information. --David Rouse