Catastrophic Care

How American Health Care Killed My Father--and How We Can Fix It

By: David Goldhill

Narrated by: Dean Sluyter

A visionary investigation that will change the way we think about health care: how and why it is failing, why expanding coverage will actually make things worse, and how our health care can be transformed into a transparent, affordable, successful system.

In 2007, David Goldhill’s father died from infections acquired in a hospital - one of more than two hundred thousand avoidable deaths per year caused by medical error. The bill was enormous - and Medicare paid it. These circumstances left Goldhill angry and determined to understand how world-class technology and personnel could coexist with such carelessness - and how a business that failed so miserably could be paid in full. Catastrophic Care is the eye-opening result.

Blending personal anecdotes and extensive research, Goldhill presents us with cogent, biting analysis that challenges the basic preconceptions that have shaped our thinking for decades. Contrasting the Island of health care with the Mainland of our economy, he demonstrates that high costs, excess medicine, terrible service, and medical error are the inevitable consequences of our insurance-based system. He explains why policy efforts to fix these problems have invariably produced perverse results, and how the new Affordable Care Act is more likely to deepen than to solve these issues.

Goldhill steps outside the incremental and wonkish debates to question the conventional wisdom blinding us to more fundamental issues. He proposes a comprehensive new way, where the customer (the patient) is first - a system focused on health and maintaining it, a system strong and vibrant enough for our future.

If you think health care is interesting only to institutes and politicians, think again: Catastrophic Care is surprising, engaging, and brimming with insights born of questions nobody has thought to ask. Above all it is an audiobook of new ideas that can transform the way we understand a subject we often take for granted.

©2013 David Goldhill (P)2013 Random House Audio

Should be required reading/listening for every citizen

I’ve listened to well over 100 books on Audible, this is the first time I have done a review.

In the national debate over healthcare, we have been arguing about the wrong things. I lean conservative. The author, David Goldhill, is a professed liberal. I suspect we disagree on a wide variety of issues. We are in complete agreement on the state of US healthcare, how we got to this point, and what should be done about it.

I always try to see and understand all sides of every issue. This book is about the way we fund our healthcare in the US. I don’t think it’s possible to give a legitimate argument against the information presented, the conclusions made, and the proposals put forth in this book. Every side in every argument likes to crow about their version of “common sense”. Mr. Goldhill has found the common sense and the common ground on the issue of healthcare (or more specifically “health insurance”) in the USA.

I say this next statement as one who is not prone to exaggeration or hyperbole. If spread to a wide enough audience including our elected leaders, this book may go down in American history as the most important text of the early 21st century.

A must-listen!

Best narrator for this kind of material and can't imagine a more thorough yet understandable treatment of this complex subject matter.

A great take on healthcare

As someone who has work in the industry for almost a decade and has seen every cost saving pilot and payment model imaginable, this book squares perfectly with my intuition on the fruitless attempts to cut cost in healthcare! Great read and I wish more people knew how much medical care is costing us.

Excellent Overview

This is a great overview of the complex payer-provider relationship. Goldhill not only explains current pitfalls and misaligned incentives, but provides a solution conjecture.

REQUIRED READING FOR EVERYONE

I recently saw the author doing a spot on a news show promoting the book. When I saw the title I was kind of put off, however, he does not dwell on his father's death rather uses it as an example of our failing health care system.

First you do not have to be a scholar to understand this book. It is written so everyone can benefit. The book is honest and thoughful. It gives excellent clarity to an incredible complicated issue.

It is an excellent primer for anyone seeking to understand the reason health care is so very expensive and why so many reforms including the Affordable Care Act, are destined to fail because they do not provide the correct incentives.

The author also provides ideas for correcting the issue as well.

The narration is clean and crisp. I was able to listen to it at 2x speed on my phone and it was excellent

This book is important.

This is eye opening into the horrifying catastrophe of healthcare. This book also explains why increased health care is not the same thing as increased health. Do yourself a favor and listen to this.

Amen brother

I've been practicing medicine for 20 years and I can could certainly get behind his ideas. Goldhill for president.

A jarring (must) read

This is the most thorough and accessible explanation of the underlying economics that drive our healthcare system. Anyone who wants to understand why it works the way it does should read/listen to this book. It will intrigue and frustrate you to no end, but it'll leave you with a deep understanding of the system. It's changed many of my views and opened my eyes up to the real problem we face. We have created a weird hybrid market that is 95% centrally controlled/driven and 5% market driven (mostly for show). That makes unexpected things happen, so we make more rules and those make more unexpected things happen. Then we repeat. Mix in politics, emotions and cost plus pricing and you end up with what Goldhill calls "the beast".

The narrator was perfect at 1.25 speed.

Very infuriating

Loved this book and the way it managed to be so relatable. Easy to read/listen to. Excellent points made, solutions posited are a little optimistic, and given how human nature is it doesn't sound very realistic, but kudos to the author.