One Injury, 10 Countries: A Journey in Health Care

[elleng]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/15book.html?th&emc=th

[Luminous Animal]

1. Good review of what might be an interesting book.

I totally love the way the reviewer snidely slammed Michael Moore's SiCKO but then ended with this:

One is the uninsured working person, too rich for Medicaid, too poor for a standard insurance policy, at first too proud to acknowledge disability, and then too sick for the process that a formal declaration of disability requires. These are the people who die of treatable illness in our country.

And then there is the insured working person who discovers, with surprise, that health insurance is a for-profit industry, that the industry term for payment is “medical loss” and that the process of extracting payment for a dire health condition can turn into a bizarre game of “catch me if you can.”

A person’s last days can be spent in any number of ways. But on the phone pleading with an insurer, that’s only in America.

Um, dudette, you just wrote a synopsis to SiCKO.

[stray cat]

2. I ordered the book - the reviews are quite good.

I look forward to reading it.