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| Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer | 
 enlarge | Author: Shannon Brownlee
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 4717
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1582345791
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9781582345796
ASIN: 1582345791
Publication Date: September 2, 2008
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Product Description
“My choice for the economics book of the year…it’s the best description I have yet read of a huge economic problem that we know how to solve—but is so often misunderstood.”—David Leonhardt, New York Times Our health care is staggeringly expensive, yet one in six Americans has no health insurance. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors. In this gripping, eye-opening book, award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee takes readers inside the hospital to dismantle some of our most venerated myths about American medicine. Brownlee dissects what she calls “the medical-industrial complex” and lays bare the backward economic incentives embedded in our system, revealing a stunning portrait of the care we now receive. Nevertheless, Overtreated ultimately conveys a message of hope by reframing the debate over health care reform. It offers a way to control costs and cover the uninsured while simultaneously improving the quality of American medicine. Shannon Brownlee’s humane, intelligent, and penetrating analysis empowers readers to avoid the perils of overtreatment, as well as pointing the way to better health care for everyone. With a new afterword offering practical advice to patients on how to navigate the health care system.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 Easy reading, Hard thinking October 28, 2007
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
This well-written book is easy to read and raises some big questions about what we really want from our health care system. The author has obviously done a lot of research and looks at the history of how we got here, but she also brings it all to life with lots of stories and real examples. I'm a nurse, but I learned new things from reading this and found that it gave me some new perspectives on my work and the experiences of my patients. Definitely recommend it to anyone concerned about the cost and quality of our American health care system.
Don't just do something - stand there! December 4, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is an extremely important book to read for anyone who has or will come into contact with the healthcare industry - that is pretty much every single person alive in the USA. The current health care system is broken very badly. The media and politicians talk about it but not enough. The problem is far more serious than any national issue. The US spends over 15% of its GDP per capita on health care which is by far the greatest amount compared to other nations. What do we get for it? According to WHO the our outcomes are roughly comparable to Chile (worse than Greece). For outcomes, I am using "Life expectancy at birth", "Healthy life expectancy at birth", and "Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years". (See http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en/). Chile spends only about 6% of their GDP on healthcare. There are lots of reasons for this poor performance but Brownlee discusses one that is rarely talked about which happens to be the most important reason. That reason is overtreating.
Brownlee has done her research very well and presents a well balanced (until the last chapter but more on that later) account of why our current system leads to overtreating. She discusses the three main reasons as being 1) fear of malpractice law suits by physicians (ie: doctor orders head CT scan for a patient with a headache even though chances of brain tumor is very small). The second reason is consumer demand (ie: patients demanding unnecessary tests) and finally financial incentives and culture in medicine (From early on medical students are taught to gain as much information as possible hence leading to unnecessary tests and procedures). All 3 reasons are valid. Perhaps Brownlee underestimates the importance of the first two reasons.
The reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5 was because of my disappointment at the final chapter. In the final chapter she proposes some solutions. Throughout the book I was excited to hear her solutions. Given her insights and brilliant research, I expected well thought of solutions with solid backing. She basically proposes copying the VHA (Veterans Health Administration) or HMO's like Group Health. She also touts electronic record keeping. She ignores the problems that will undoubtedly arise from the proliferation of these systems. For example, she states that under the current system physicians have perverse financial incentives to perform procedures since they get paid for each procedure. Under a system, where physicians are salaried like Group Health or VHA, physicians would have perverse incentives NOT to do appropriate procedures. Why would that system not lead to undertreating? Furthermore she begrudges drug companies like Pfizer for having gross margins of 27%, considerably higher than GE and Walmart. One cannot compare a drug company's single financial stats with another company in a different industry. Brownlee ought to know that better. Had she used gross profit then both GE and Walmart would have profits more than twice Pfizer's. In any case it should not be the government's job to keep track of companies' profitability in a capitalistic system.
In all fairness to Brownlee, US Healthcare system is very complicated and perhaps she should not have tackled solutions at this point. I look forward to a sequel where she has more thoughtful solutions with solid microeconomic foundations. In any case, this is a must read and she has done an excellent job (until the final chapter).
HELP! - Healthcare Reform Needed!!!!! March 5, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Read this book.
If you are in the American healthcare system, this is the single most important book you will ever read. If you are in a healthcare system that is moving towards "privatization" or "free market reform", this may be the most important book you will ever read. If you are a behavioral scientist interested in the role of behavioral factors in medical populations, this is the most important book you will ever read.
A science journalist with a real science background (an M.S. in Biology) and now a Fellow at the New America Foundation, Brownlee has brought together many strands of research to provide us with a picture of the core dilemma in the american health care system - why do we spend so much more than other industrialized countries while not producing better outcomes? At 16% of Gross Domestic Product (and climbing), the American healthcare system is 60-100% more expensive than any other industrialized country and yet we do not live as long as citizens there. Where all these countries cover 100% of their citizens, the American system leaves about 15% of its population (about 47 million people) uncovered at any one time (and even more if you include loss of coverage for extended periods, but not a whole year). Fifty percent of bankruptcies in the U.S. are due to medical bills. Americans avoid switching jobs for fear of losing coverage for pre-existing conditions. The U.S. manages to achieve these colossal failures while still expending 62% of all costs through the government (if civilian government employee's coverage is included as part of the government supported costs).
While there are many contributing problems (profiteering by insurance and drug companies, a system which rewards physicians for doing more rather than just what is proven effective, malpractice anxiety leading to defensive practice, lack of coverage for primary preventive and mental health care which could avoid more expensive emergency care, etc.), Brownlee demonstrates that the core issue is a lack of clinical research to guide physician's decision-making. Where ambiguity exists (and it exists in up to 80% of healthcare), variability in "standard" care is great, and unnecessary care and expense mounts. As a comic strip character once observed: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Starting with the studies by John Wennberg and the Dartmouth Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Brownlee reviews the high level of variability (up to seven fold) in the use of various procedures across the U.S. Wennberg's observation is that in U.S. healthcare, "geography is destiny". The kind of treatment you receive depends upon where you live, not what your illness is. And the characteristic most strongly associated with unnecessary care is the number of specialists. If we build it, they will come. The normal operation of a free market is distorted in healthcare by: socialization of costs; the desperation of patients and families; the vast difference between "buyers" (patients) and "sellers" (practitioners, hospitals, drug companies) in understanding what actually works and the tradeoffs in outcomes; and the placebo effect and spontaneous remission. But isn't it part of our duty to protect patients from unproven, and potentially harmful, interventions? If outcomes were improved in the more aggressive geographic areas of the country we might be able to claim that the less costly areas are undertreated, but they are not. In fact, in most comparisons, patients are, if anything, worse off with the more aggressive care. Remember that Hippocratic dictum: "Primum, non nocere" (First, do not harm)? The propensity of U.S. healthcare is to "do something" rather than accepting the patient's status as perhaps better than the potential harm occasioned by aggressive intervention. For those of us raised in the era of "If it might help, do it", this is tough medicine to swallow. But it is necessary medicine.
Brownlee acquaints the reader with many of the more egregious failures of the system: back surgery for chronic low back pain; mastectomy (vs lumpectomy) in breast cancer; bone marrow transplantation in breast cancer; PTCA for event, or even chest pain, reduction in coronary heart disease; fen-phen for weight loss; carotid
endarterectomy in asymptomatic patients; surgery for prostate cancer, etc.
One implication of all this is that the highest priority for medical research should be clinical trials that clarify the effectiveness, safety and efficiency of various treatments. The hostility of the NIH to this task is captured by a quote from its director: "We don't do Coke versus Pepsi". Fine. If the NIH is uninterested in improving American healthcare (it's congressionally mandated mission), defund the NIH and put the money into the Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research - the folks who blew the whistle on back pain surgery and were subsequently assaulted by the Orthopods bribing Congress. The priorities for public funding should exactly answer us about "Coke versus Pepsi", because that's where lives are won or lost. Cellular, subcellular and genetic research has such a low rate of clinical payoff that it ought to be the minor theme.
 Not much new or thought provoking November 1, 2007
9 out of 43 found this review helpful
Well, if you have any background in health policy or health care, you will find this book too simplistic. It is a good general read for someone who doesn't listen or read news, since most of the topics covered have been well-covered elsewhere.
Well worth a read.......... February 14, 2008
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Yes, some of the information in the book can be found in other books, but not everyone has the time to read dozens of different books on the subject or american medical care both pros and cons.
Who ever knew that a town in Oregon was #1 in the number of back surgeries or a place in the midwest was # 1 in cardio procedures. Medicine has sure made itself into special places for certain medical procedures. And her information on how medical procedures and doctors connections to medical providers be it equipment or insurance coverage is equally interesting.
Already knew Sweden was great when it came to medical care, as well as France in many ways. Sweden is it should be noted is a country with a non minority cultural connection that combines food choices and lifestyle choices that most of the citizens identify with. When everyone in a country with a common goal cooperates the results are an overall high standard of living for everyone.
Would have liked to have had the author actually spend time in France and Sweden looking firsthand at how things are done, rather than rely on other peoples information or antidotal examples.
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