The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Hardcover)

by David Gratzer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
We are surrounded by medical miracles: polio has been eradicated; childhood leukemia is now treatable; death by cardiovascular disease has declined by two-thirds in the last fifty years. Yet while American medicine has never been better, angst over American health care has never been greater. Why is American health care such a mess? In this path-breaking book--Nobel laureate Milton Friedman calls it "fascinating and thorough"--Dr. David Gratzer goes to the heart of the problem, showing that the crisis in American health care stems largely from its addiction to outmoded and discredited economic ideas. What needs to be done? Dr. Gratzer mounts a bold and provocative argument, rejecting the conventional wisdom that socialized health care is compassionate and that top-down government agencies like the FDA actually save lives. Instead, he prescribes a strong dose of capitalism. The Cure offers a detailed overview of American health care, from economics and politics to medical science. Weighing in on the most controversial topics in health care, Dr. Gratzer makes the case that it's possible to reduce health expenses, insure millions more, and improve quality of care while not growing government or raising taxes. An award-winning author and essayist, he is a master storyteller, enlivening his book with anecdotes, interviews, and stories drawn from his own extensive clinical experience. He details the cardiac woes of Robert E. Lee and Dick Cheney, describes a chat over coffee with Canada's foremost private medical entrepreneur (an acquaintance of Fidel Castro, as it happens), and explains the evolution of his own thinking, from advocating HillaryCare as a medical student to promoting individual choice and competition today. The patient is in critical condition; Dr. Gratzer diagnoses the disease and prescribes the cure.

From the Back Cover
"David Gratzer is a practicing psychiatrist who combines firsthand knowledge of medical practice in both his native Canada and the U.S. with an independent point of view and a rare capacity for lucid exposition of complex technical material. . . If you want a well-written, interesting yet authoritative and thorough account of what is wrong with medicine today and how to cure American health care, this is the book for you."

- Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Economics (from foreword to The Cure)

"The Cure is a must read for all students of health care policy. Dr. Gratzer correctly diagnoses the U.S. health care system's problems and proposes workable solutions to fix them. His ideas will help reign-in costs while, at the same time, preserve necessary incentives for quality-of-life enhancing innovations."

--John F. Cogan, Senior Fellow, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

"David Gratzer's well written book should be in the reading list of anyone interested in health care reform. In five-sixths of the U.S economy, we look to markets as an organizing mechanism; in the one-sixth of the economy represented by health care, public policy has frustrated markets, with adverse consequences for cost, access, and quality. Gratzer's capitalist manifesto is a shot in the arm; with it, the much that's right with American health care can grow."

--R. Glenn Hubbard, Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School; and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

"The caduceus is an apt symbol for medicine, given the bureaucratic snake pit the American health care system has become. Dr. David Gratzer skillfully wields Occam's razor to shave away the Byzantine rhetoric and show us that the cure for health care comes in the simplest of formulas - free markets, less government meddling, and a healthy dose of capitalism."

--Governor Bill Owens, Colorado

"Dr. David Gratzer is uniquely qualified to diagnose and provide a treatment regimen for the US health care system's problems. In this book he performs this function for us, does it with his usual acumen and clarity. He leads us by the hand through the labyrinth of legal, institutional and regulatory events that brought to the point where, at least to some, we are in a health crisis that can only be solved by further movement away from the market and toward a universal centrally controlled system. He thoroughly debunks the notion we can improve the US health care system by becoming more like our neighbors to the North. After taking us there, he shows us why these same legal, institutional, and regulatory events are largely responsible for our predicament and that the popular solution of more of the same is not the answer. He convincingly demonstrates that the only way out is less regulation of, and more freedom for, the providers and customers of health care. This book should be read by anyone involved, or with the hope or potential to be involved, in determining health care policy."

--Tom Saving, Director, Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University.

"Excellent addition to the emerging call for empowering patients rather than government bureaucrats with control of the health care dollar, written by someone with an expert view from the inside!"

--Scott W. Atlas, MD, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books; 1 edition (October 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594031533
• ISBN-13: 978-1594031533
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #240,052 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 177 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Achieving the perfect orderliness of a soylent green society, July 12, 2009

By	Gen. JC Christian, patriot (Tremonton, UT United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Paperback)

David Gratzer's "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care" is perhaps greatest paen ever written to the one true religion: laissez-faire capitalism. It's a celebration of the triumph of the bottom line, an adoration of profit, and a joyous prayer of hope for the perfect orderliness of a soylent green society.

Over the last 30 years, we've stood in awe as we've witnessed unregulated capitalism's transformative powers. Where once our edible ecology lacked such keystone species as E.coli and salmonella, our meat, fruit, vegetables, and water have become veritable Edens for those precious pathogens. Where once financial regulation checked glorious greed and encouraged the unbearable ennui that comes with stability, our new, deregulated, economic environment has brought excitement to investing and incredible profits to those few deserving oligarchs who were most prepared with the connections to exploit the system to their advantage.

Now, David Gratzer and the insurance industry wants to do the same for health care. He's heard the complaints. He's read studies like the 2004 Commonwealth Fund report which looked at satisfaction in five nations. He saw that they found that U.S. Americans were by far the most dissatisfied with their health care system (over twice as dissatisfied as Canadians)and less likely to receive care because of cost (17% of Canadians vs 40% of U.S. Americans).

Yes, he's studied it thoroughly and has decided that the problem with the U.S. system is that it is not capitalistic enough. It needs to be deregulated like the food and banking industries. The problem isn't lack of access, it's about deciding who deserves what level of care--it's about rationing health care by one's ability to pay.

Even more importantly, it's not a matter of whether someone can receive the care they need, but whether society will allow him or her to access a free market solution to pay for that service. Is our society advanced enough to provide a patient's loved ones an opportunity to sell their organs to pay for needed health care? Have we achieved that level of compassionate capitalism yet? Do the poor and working classes care enough about life to make sacrifices to preserve it? If not, do they really deserve all of the benefits of life?

These are the fundamental questions to which Gratzer alludes, but, unfortunately, fails to fully address in his book. That's a shame, because these are the questions that must be answered if we are ever to fully achieve the libertarian society he envisions.

That said, Gratzer does honor laissez-faire capitalism with the blind worship that it deserves as the answer to everything (along with lower taxes and drilling in the ANWR). That's why I'm giving his book four stars.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dr. Gratzer has little credibility on this subject, June 10, 2009

By	T. J. Williams (Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Paperback)

I watched Dr. Gratzer's testimony today before Congress regarding U.S. health care reform. He is a Canadian, not living in Canada, a doctor not practicing medicine and a think tank fellow who has not thought very clearly about what he is saying. He ritually maintained that Canada's single payer health system was flawed, that Canadians don't like it and come to the U.S. for medical treatment and yet he could not adequately respond to statistics offered by Congressman Kucinich that 97% of Canadians would not want a U.S. type system as well as other statistics on the level of care in Canada. He never offered reasons for his alleged problems with the Canadian system nor any solutions. Presumably, he would favor Canada use the U.S. system of private insurers in an unregulated environment. In fact, from reading other reviews, apparently the doctor asserts that the existing level of government regulation is the problem with the U.S. system. He goes so far as to say the federal law requiring emergency rooms to treat all patients regardless of the ability to pay is forcing hospitals to close. So, he must want to repeal that law and let people suffer on the sidewalk outside the hospital. This guy is a doctor not worthy of his license.

If you choose to read this book, be aware that the author has an agenda. His statistics may be skewed or just in error. His thinking is preordained to reject any change to the health care system. Although he said he thought some reform was needed, he never indicated what that reform ought to be. He reiterated his talking points and inadequately defended his statements. I would doubt that he has much to contribute to the benefit of either the Canadian or American health care systems.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Somali Model, July 13, 2009

By	Poncho (Ontario) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care (Paperback)

I've enjoyed Dr. Gratzer's book immensely; I've been a fan of his ever since his epic battle with David "Imp of the Perverse" Kucinich. Here is a man, I thought, with such courage of his convictions that no fact is salient enough to shake him, no statistic hefty enough to rock the pillars of Freemarketianity upon which his faith so surely rests.

I must, however, give his book only three stars - and, I think, so must every libertarian. The problem with single payer health care is not that the government controls every medical decision, any more than the problem with American "you payer" health care is that HMOs control every medical decision. The problem is that, in both systems, it is the plutocracy of "doctors" who callously tell patients of all income brackets what kind of health care they "need" and thus drive the cost of health care ever and ever higher. What America needs is to get rid of this autocratic system once and for all and embrace the principles of DIY health care. We don't need European or Canadian style health care; we should be looking to Somalia for our model.

Several months ago some "doctors" told me that I desperately "needed" a liver transplant to go on "living." I told them that, as I was a firm advocate of DIY health care, I would not be relying on their "expertise" to cure me. At any rate, I couldn't even come close to affording the procedure, and as for raising my taxes? Well, I suppose saying "over my dead body" might be a little redundant at this point.

Sure, there should still be doctors for those who can afford them, but the rest of us need not concern ourselves with that. Doctors should become something like a jewel-encrusted platinum cell phone, a luxury silly rich people can afford, but the rest of us Real Americans know we can do without; in fact, we know we're happier without such clutter in our lives. Instead, the marketplace will provide us with simple DIY kits for heart surgeries, spinal taps and kidney biopsies, complete with tools and instruction manuals, reasonably priced and readily available at your local Home Depot or Costco.

For my own surgery I've constructed a Home Liver Transplant kit, which, though a little crude, will do the job nicely. It was tremendously difficult to find a reciprocating saw small enough for my needs (and I can't really say where I got my new liver); the paucity of supplies is, indeed, the only real barrier to the DIY Health Care enthusiast, but my faith in the market is such that I know it will correct such oversights in time. Heck, if my kit works, I could be the next DIYHC millionaire! Not too shabby!

I hope Dr. Gratzer will consider the changes I advocate; I might, perhaps, be able to write a second preface for a new edition of his book - one which, of course, will go after the preface written by His Holiness Milton Friedman.