Reinventing American Health Care Lib/E: How the Affordable Care ACT Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System

In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. It was the most extensive reform of America's health care system since at least the creation of Medicare in 1965, and maybe ever. The ACA was controversial and highly political, and the law faced legal challenges reaching all the way to the Supreme Court; it even precipitated a government shutdown. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania who also served as a special adviser to the White House on health care reform, has written a brilliant diagnostic explanation of why health care in America has become such a divisive social issue, how money and medicine have their own American story, and why reform has bedeviled presidents of the left and right for more than one hundred years. Emanuel also explains exactly how the ACA reforms are reshaping the health care system now. He forecasts the future, identifying six mega trends in health that will determine the market for health care to 2020 and beyond. His predictions are bold, provocative, and uniquely well-informed. Health care has never had a more comprehensive or authoritative interpreter.

About the Author :
Ezekiel J. Emanuel is the author or coauthor of several books, including The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics, Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family, and Global Justice and Bioethics. He is the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, the Diane S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor, and Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He was the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and held that position until August of 2011. Until January 2011, he served as a Special Advisor on Health Policy to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council. He is also an Op-Ed contributor to the New York Times and a contributor to MSNBC. William Dufris attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland-Gorham before pursuing a career in voice work in London and then the United States. He has won more than twenty AudioFile Earphones Awards, was voted one of the Best Voices at the End of the Century by AudioFile magazine, and won the prestigious Audie Award in 2012 for best nonfiction narration. He lives with his family in Maine.

Review :
A plain-English explanation of a tricky topic.-- "Booklist" "Ably assesses the impact of the Affordable Care Act...Because all Americans are affected by the ACA the chapters detailing the content and personal implications of the act will be of value and interest to everyone." -- "Library Journal (starred review)" "An entertaining and informative mix of history, fact, argument, and speculation. His book's subtitle to the contrary, it is not simply a defense of the ACA. Emanuel does a superb job of describing the history of health care in the United States...Essential reading." -- "Health Affairs" "Clarif[ies] how the Affordable Care Act can rehabilitate our nauseatingly unjust, grossly expensive, and senselessly complicated health-care system." -- "Vanity Fair" "Deftly using numbers to make his arguments, Emanuel [presents]...a plain-English explanation of a tricky topic." -- "Booklist" "Informative, thought provoking, and immensely important...Emanuel clearly wants to persuade, but he also wants to explain. And because he was an insider--and proves himself a gifted writer--he makes an able guide to the complexities of the landmark legislation." -- "Boston Globe" "Much of the labor of convincing is certainly in the text itself, but William Dufris' expert narration makes the argument that much more potent. Dufris nails each paragraph, using just the right rhythm and emphasis to give listeners full access to the author's ideas. Teasing out long and complicated passages, he helps listeners comprehend all the moving parts of a complicated and convoluted system." -- "AudioFile" "Offers an insider's account of some of the infighting that occurred within the Obama administration...[and] takes a long view of the reforms...An important challenge to the naysayers on both sides of the political divide." -- "Kirkus Reviews" "The definitive primer on health care in America." -- "Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States and president emeritus, Harvard University" "Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, they're well argued, and he has marshaled an impressive amount of information." -- "Washington Post"