Book recommendations

1. I heard Canadian doctor/author Michael Rachlis interviewed this evening on WRFG. While I have not yet read his book, his responses on the interview makes me feel his book, Prescription for Excellence, is worth looking into:

From Amazon:
Prescription for Excellence is esteemed health policy analyst Michael Rachlis’s blueprint for innovative best practices—many of which already exist across the country. It lays out a plan to eliminate emergency room and hospital overcrowding, maximize our access to doctors through teamwork and reform our incredibly inefficient waiting system for tests or treatment. With his impressive talent for deconstructing complex policy issues into clear and understandable analysis, Michael Rachlis has delivered an indispensable guide for all Canadians.

2. I have ordered Howard Dean's book, Prescription for Real Health Care Reform.

Review from Publishers Weekly-

As both a Democratic Party standard bearer and a former practicing physician, Gov. Dean (You Have the Power, Winning Back America) has placed himself at the forefront of grass-roots organizing for healthcare reform. In a searing indictment of private insurers who put profits ahead of care, Dean advocates a public-health insurance option, posing the question: "Is private health insurance really health insurance? Or is it simply an extension of the things that have been happening on Wall Street?" Charts illustrate the disadvantages faced by U.S. industry against competitors in other countries, and dovetail with his plan for "healthcare reform, not just insurance reform," including more preventative medicine, home-care for seniors, standards set by medical professionals rather than insurers; ultimately, he concludes, the result would be lower costs and better medicine. Dean is most controversial when he proposes to fund reforms with a carbon tax on gasoline, and only slightly less so when asserting that a "reform bill is not worth passing" without a public option. This lively, detailed read should help shape the debate on one of the year's most pressing issues.