Everyone needs healthcare, and healthcare is primarily the reason why we are able to have long lifespans. Healthcare consists of doctors, hospitals, the pharmaceutical industry, and the medications that they create. The healthcare industry in the USA is quite large and influential due to the vastly growing needs of a growing population within the US. The fact of the matter is that healthcare is quite important to the well-being and the needs of everyday citizens. However, just like every industry, healthcare has its problems.
Healthcare in the US is quite a contentious topic. Many Americans are unable to afford basic healthcare if they are paying out of pocket due to the ludicrous prices of hospital visits; every procedure tends to be overcharged, and many aren’t even given a reason for the overcharging, or if they are given a reason it is usually a trivial, along with many preventable medical errors being the rule rather than the exception leading to the deaths of countless people every year. Many books about healthcare have been written to address many of these concerns and how they seem to affect the lives of many people. Healthcare is a necessity. However, it’s greatly mismanaged within the US.
We’re going to be taking a look at some books about healthcare that should hopefully show you how the healthcare system in the United States of America operates and what the flaws and positives of the system are.
1. Strawberry Smoothies, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Lots of Drugs By Richard Caits
This book is the personal journey of a man whose mother becomes greatly ill, and he ends up becoming her caretaker, ensuring that she gets the healthcare that she needs. This memoir tells her story as well as his journey of spending time in and around hospitals tending to his ill mother.
2. An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back By Elisabeth Rosenthal
This book looks into the problems associated with the healthcare industry in the United States of America and how people who need urgent care or medical care, in general, can use many of the tactics described in this book to gain the care that they need without being overcharged for it.
3. The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care By T.R Reid
This book asks some uncomfortable questions about healthcare, such as whether healthcare is a universal right or not. The author does this by going to different countries outside of the US to see how they are faring with their own healthcare systems. The author ends up discovering that many of the countries are unfortunately not handling their own problems that well, either with endless lines in places such as Canada or poorly paid doctors in Japan.
4. The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands
This book looks into how much of the medical industry is digitized, and many of the costs to the patients can be minimized and reduced. The book discusses in detail various methods to make medical care more affordable and give patients more power.
5. America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System By Steven Brill
America’s bitter pill looks at the implementation of Obamacare and how it fails to fix or address many of the problems associated with the healthcare industry in the United States of America.
6. The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care—and How to Fix It By Marty Makary
This book looks at how the rising healthcare costs in the United States have threatened even small businesses in America. The author travels across the US to understand why healthcare is the way it is. The book postulates that many of the costs of healthcare come from things that have nothing to do with healthcare. A powerful and riveting read.
7. Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again By Eric J.Topol
This book looks into how medicine has become an overcrowded and saturated field, with doctors making mistakes on a routine basis due to them being burnt out and overwhelmed. The book proposes the idea that AI can revolutionize the healthcare industry.
8. Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care By Jonathan Bush
This book seeks to alleviate much of the exploitation and over-price in the healthcare industry. It provides solutions through the author's observations about how healthcare can become far cheaper and provide far more options to patients.
9. How Doctors Think By Jerome Groopman
This book tries to provide information to doctors so that they can make better decisions, keep patient care as a priority, and be more conscious of the patient's problems. Oftentimes, doctors interrupt patients as they describe their symptoms, and they make snap judgements that can oftentimes be wrong.
10. Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom Katherine Eban
This book looks into how fraudulent the pharmaceutical industry really is. The book draws accounts from many whistleblowers and regulators, as well as thousands of confidential FDA documents.
Hopefully, you found this blog informative and intriguing, as the books about healthcare presented in this blog are among the most well-researched and well-written ones that showcase a different side to healthcare that many people are simply not aware of.