In the Guts of Health Care

Ask Americans what concerns them most and the answer invariably will be the cost and quality of their health care. That is if they have coverage at all. And yet aside from short-lived effort on behalf of universal health care by Hillary Clinton during the beginning of the Clinton administration the average American has no idea what can be done. Though there have been numerous publications on health care reform over the last few years most have been academically oriented targeted to a professional audience and too technical and confusing for the average person. Dr. Fouad Michael a hugely successful physician who retired at the peak of his career to work for health care reform outlines clearly and concisely how our present system of health care operates the reasons it doesn't work and the best possible solution. This book speaks to the reader on a level and in language that he or she can understand. Dr. Michael brings a unique perspective to the problem with his bicultural knowledge having worked in two different types of medical care systems Egypt and the US. Back in Egypt he experienced firsthand the socialist revolution of the sixties and studied and practiced medicine in a national health care system with all its flows and ambitions. He practiced medicine in the US for more than three decades and witnessed the transformation from the fee-for-service system to the managed care revolution. Over the years his interest in health care reform developed hand in hand with his own experience. Dr. Michael takes the reader through the failings of the fee-for-service and the managed care systems using countless examples of his own patients' experiences ones that the reader will easily identify with. He then outlines the solution: a single payer system modeled on the five principles of the Canadian system which would serve as a basis for a US model.