Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer

As a both a Democratic Party standard bearer and a former practicing physician, Gov. Dean (You Have the Power, Winning Back America) has placed himself at the forefront of grass-roots organizing for healthcare reform. In a searing indictment of private insurers who put profits ahead of care, Dean advocates a public-health insurance option, posing the question: ""Is private health insurance really health insurance? Or is it simply an extension of the things that have been happening on Wall Street?"" Charts illustrate the disadvantages faced by U.S. industry against competitors in other countries, and dovetail with his plan for ""healthcare reform, not just insurance reform,"" including more preventative medicine, home-care for seniors, standards set by medical professionals rather than insurers; ultimately, he concludes, the result would be lower costs and better medicine. Dean is most controversial when he proposes to fund reforms with a carbon tax on gasoline, and only slightly less so when asserting that a ""reform bill is not worth passing"" without a public option. This lively, detailed read should help shape the debate on one of the year's most pressing issues.