Curing Medicare: A Doctors View on How Our Health Care System Is Failing Older Americans and How We Can Fix It

Abstract

[Excerpt] With this book I hope to demonstrate how our health-care system is failing our oldest and frailest Americans, and how that failure is inextricably tied to Medicare’s philosophy and payment structure. My critique is part of a larger social debate that is developing about the goals of modern medicine in particular and the health-care system in general. Many patients, physicians, other health-care professionals, and health-care organizations—including unions, foundations, patient-safety organizations, and politicians—are becoming increasingly concerned about the principles and practices that escalate health-care costs and put patients at risk.