cover image Strong Medicine: What's Wrong with America's Health Care System and How We Can Fix It

Strong Medicine: What's Wrong with America's Health Care System and How We Can Fix It

George Halvorson, Halvorson. Random House (NY), $19 (251pp) ISBN 978-0-679-42980-7

Because our country lacks a unified system connecting health care delivery and financing, our fee-for-service system offers the ``lowest value at the highest cost'' in the world, charges Halvorson, president and CEO of Group Health MedCenter Health Plan of Minneapolis. He further argues that insurers who operate on a risk-avoidance basis are indifferent to the quality of care received by their clients, thereby contributing to unnecessary expensive procedures and needless deaths. Illustrated with specific examples of present roles of doctor, hospital, insurer and government, the author's admittedly controversial reform proposal includes universal coverage, prepayment for team care ``with salary based on quality . . . not costs of patient care'' and consumer-focused monitoring. Halvorson's plans for bringing together caregiver and insurer into a single team are inadequately developed. (Oct.)