This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Caring for the Uninsured and Underinsured  • Medical Practice, Other  • Alert me on articles by topic

By Laurence J. Kotlikoff
116 pp, $17.95
Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-2621-1314-4

JAMA. 2008;299(12):1480-1481.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Both the medical and lay presses are awash in books and articles on the "health care dilemma," in the United States, and the presidential campaign has only increased the printed plethora of solutions to the crisis. As of November 2007, Amazon.com listed more than 3335 titles on the health care crisis and 7707 on health care reform. If I had a dollar for every title about the dysfunctional health care system, I would have little difficulty paying my medical premiums.

Most current books on health care reform follow a standard pattern. An opening section typically outlines the present and future medical and monetary troubles due to the current system—eg, 47 million uninsured individuals, the inundation of baby boomers, elderly care costs, future destruction of life on earth. A second section usually presents such topics as the perils and advantages of "socialized medicine," faults and advantages of the British/Canadian/Berzerkistan system, pluses . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Markley H. Boyer, MD, DPhil, MPH, Reviewer
Tufts University School of Medicine
Boston, Massachusetts
mark.boyer@tufts.edu