Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare [Paperback]

David Himmelstein (Author), Steffie Woolhandler (Author), David Himmelstein M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

An update on the 1994 expose that reveals the most Americans would prefer a national health program like Canada's that not only costs less than ours but insures everyone. Why in a democracy, isn't this an option? Where is the choice? There is none when a multibillion dollar insurance industry spreads lies and promotes managed competition, keeping information from the public and spreading lies about the Canadian system.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Common Courage Press; 1st edition (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567512062
• ISBN-13: 978-1567512069
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,773,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars diseased system, October 10, 2001

By 

nancy folbre (Montague, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare (Paperback)

The system we rely on to protect our health is seriously diseased. The structure of ownership and management creates perverse incentives that hurt patients and demoralize doctors and nurses who struggle to provide high quality care.
We need to change this system. To do that, we need to inform as many people as possible about its failures and develop alternatives to corporate "for profit" managed care.

Bleeding the Patient can help us do that. It is clear, concise, full of facts and figures. It's more of a user-friendly reference book than a narrative, but that's OK. The choice of topics and level of information is excellent. It ranges from issues of prenatal care to so-called "capitation" agreements to details regarding the hugely inefficient medical insurance bureaucracy. My only complaint is that it's sometimes difficult to figure out the references, which are abbreviated.

Everyone who cares about the well being of our society--as well as their personal health--should buy several copies of this book, and hand one personally to every doctor, nurse and health practictioner that they meet. Don't leave it in the waiting room! Corporate health care managers do their best to keep this kind of information out of their "clients'" hands.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The New Leeches, September 20, 2001

By 

Kenneth R. Kahn (Baltimore, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare (Paperback)

During the "dark ages" leeches were used as a means of relieving the patient of what little blood remained after an injury or illness. We are now so much more advanced than that--today we use HMO's to bleed the patient of adequate care.

What better system than one in which those bearing the cost--the poor insurance company--can control costs at the source and prevent fraud or adequate care by simply dictating to doctors and care providers what level of service they can provide and to reject those they consider costly or unnecessary. What better system can be conceived excpet one in which the best patient is the one which is never sick or uses the system.

"Bleeding the Patient" provides th reader with in-depth information from doctors who have the best interests of their patients, not HMOs or their insurance bean counters at heart. The authors skillfully combine the use of charts with narrative to provide the reader with a 360-degree view of the medical profession and how it has been perverted for the benefit of the insurance company and not the patient.

The authors explore the Canadian single-payer system and how it compares to the American system of monetary expolitation and lack of patient care. My only criticism of this well-researched and important work is that it is short on narrative and too long on charts and statistics.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meticulous, measured, mandatory reading, April 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Healthcare (Paperback)

This book is a must-read, particularly for those who are concerned with the rising cost of public health care in the U.S. We pay more and get less for our expenditures than any other industrialized nation. Our emergency rooms are overloaded, our citizenry is more vulnerable to bioterror, and our national purse is being emptied by insurance conglomerates -it's time we did something about this. geocities.com/singlepayerweb