On August 7, 2012 Camden Clark Medical Center announced the impending closure of the St. Joseph’s Hospital campus in Parkersburg, WV. Among the reasons provided for closure of the hospital were upcoming changes established by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Being a person who was born at St Joseph’s and raised in Parkersburg, I was moved by the news of the upcoming closure. Being a physician and a healthcare consultant whose life and career have been greatly impacted by the...

Why the free-market system encourages so much trickery even as it creates so much goodEver since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, se...

A behind the scenes look at how a huge portion of our absurd healthcare spending actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits.A former senior VP of CIGNA, Wendell Potter made national headlines with his scorching testimony before the Senate panel on health care reform. He explained how health insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, an...

**A New York Times bestseller • A Washington Post Notable Book • Named a Best Book of the Year by The Wall Street Journal and NPR"This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The GeneAt a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dy...

In today’s world, there are many hot-button topics that generate equal parts debate and confusion. At the top of that list is healthcare. For most Americans, finding out “the truth” about current problems or possible fixes is virtually impossible amidst all the emotionally charged rhetoric. Dr. Tim Johnson has been reporting on health matters for ABC since the mid-seventies, but in recent years he has spent an increasing amount of time studying our system of healthcare—or lack thereof. Man...

Vast and largely unexamined, the world of American charities accounts for fully 10 percent of economic activity in this country, yet operates with little accountability, no real barriers to entry, and a stunning lack of evidence of effectiveness. In With Charity for All, Ken Stern reveals a problem hidden in plain sight and prescribes a whole new way for Americans to make a difference.Each year, two thirds of American households donate to charities, with c...

**PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes—mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product—with such sweep and enlivening detail."A great battleship of a book—formidable, majestic.”—The New York Times Book Review**Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process—financial, social, psychologi...

America's health care system is unraveling, with millions of hard-working people unable to pay for prescription drugs and regular checkups, let alone hospital visits. Jonathan Cohn traveled across the United States—the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee its citizens access to medical care—to investigate why this crisis is happening and to see firsthand its impact on ordinary Americans. Passionate, powerful, illuminating, and often devastating, Sick chronicles the d...

The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately sha...

The definitive story of American health care today -- its causes, consequences, and confusions.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. It was a signa...

Award-winning journalists expose the horrific practices within America’s health care system, profiling patients and doctors and offering startling personal stories to illuminate what’s gone wrong.“Every American ought to read this book.”—The Plain DealerTens of millions of people with inadequate or no medical coverage . . . dirty examination and operating rooms in doctors’ offices and hospitals . . . more people killed by mistakes ...

The fight against ObamaCare is just beginning. The new health law, signed on March 23, 2010, destroys our constitutional rights. For the first time in history, the federal government will dictate how doctors treat their privately insured patients. That will affect you, no matter what brand-name health plan you have. Worse, some hospitals will stop taking Medicare. Where will seniors go?Advocates for women’s rights need to reassess ObamaCare. Whether you are a man or a woman, pro-ch...