Outside, Looking In
David Goldhill’s cover story in the current Atlantic is one of the more compelling healthcare pieces of the year. Not since David Gratzer’s “The Cure” or Richard Saul Wurman’s “Understanding Healthcare has there been such a critical, yet common sense assessment of the industry. As an outsider-looking-in, Goldhill explains his personal exploration of a healthcare industry that has for years delivered poor service and irregular quality at an astonishingly high cost.
A wasteful insurance system; distorted incentives; a bias toward treatment; moral hazard; hidden costs and a lack of transparency; curbed competition; service to the wrong customer. All are explained in a manner that reveals how poorly the proposed “comprehensive” reform addresses the underlying issues of the day.
As we all prepare for the homestretch of the healthcare reform debate, this should be the required reading for anyone affiliated with Washington, DC. In fact, it should be required reading for anyone that may need to use our healthcare system in the next fifty years.
