Beyond Crisis (Meridian) [Paperback]

Nancy F. McKenzie (Editor), Barbara Ehrenreich (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Meridian | Publication Date: March 1, 1994

In a comprehensive anthology of nearly 60 essays, researchers, activists, health-care professionals, and members of the Health/PAC board analyze our national health-care system and offer policy suggestions and options for reform.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This plump, sometimes unwieldy collection is the product of the Health Policy Advisory Center (Health/PAC), which for more than 25 years has offered solid progressive criticism of what it terms the "medical-industrial complex." Many of the nearly 60 essays collected here first appeared in the Health/PAC bulletin; while many are insightful, some are dated--like a book review that is the main entry on abortion and that predates the current legislative controversy on the subject--and others could use greater contextualization. Diligent readers, however, will find essays detailing a system gone wrong: the fate of underserved communities, such as the Mississippi Delta; the demise of Philadelphia General Hospital, a once prestigious public hospital; the effect of "corporatization" on doctoring; the way women's health centers primarily target the affluent. The last section includes analyses of precursors to President Clinton's health-care proposal; an essay about that plan was not available to PW. McKenzie, Health/PAC's executive director, edited The AIDS Reader.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This compilation of essays by the Health Policy Advisory Center (Health/PAC) covers numerous aspects of U.S. healthcare. Its topics include the current state of the healthcare system, healthcare providers, community responses, and specific health policy prescriptions. This volume is stern in its indictment of the system and reform efforts to date. In her foreword, Barbara Ehrenreich states that Health/PAC's solution is "conceptually simple and politically daunting: Take the profit out of health care." The book's criticisms are comprehensive, and its broad reproach of market approaches to healthcare is bound to generate much discussion among students of healthcare reform. Whatever one's own perspective, Beyond Crisis raises important questions that will eventually have to be answered by policymakers before comprehensive and thoughtful reform can be implemented.
- Karen A. Wolin, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago, Coll. of Medicine
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Plume; First Printing edition (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452011086
• ISBN-13: 978-0452011083
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,840,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)