title: Strong Medicine: What's Wrong with America's Health Care System and How We Can Fix It
author: George Halvorson
description: Because our country lacks a unified system connecting health care delivery and financing, our fee-for-service system offers the "lowest value at the highest cost" in the world, charges Halvorson, president and CEO of Group Health MedCenter Health Plan of Minneapolis. He further argues that insurers who operate on a risk-avoidance basis are indifferent to the quality of care received by their clients, thereby contributing to unnecessary expensive procedures and needless deaths. Illustrated with specific examples of present roles of doctor, hospital, insurer and government, the author's admittedly controversial reform proposal includes universal coverage, prepayment for team care "with salary based on quality . . . not costs of patient care" and consumer-focused monitoring. Halvorson's plans for bringing together caregiver and insurer into a single team are inadequately developed. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **Praise for _Who Killed Health Care?_**
  
  
  _A wonderful Orwellian romp through issues which  
  carry a deadly irony. The killers of health care are, of course,  
  the third parties, each of which has an itchy palm and  
  a commitment to profit or power which exceeds the  
  commitment to service, with each engaging the otherswithin  
  a politically shaped box. Rarely has the case for the public  
  been made with so much force, foresight, and wit,  
  and a better way forward shown so clearly_.
  
  
  —JAMES F. FRIES, MD
  
  
  PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
  
  
  STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
  
  
  _You can practically hear the war chants as Professor Herzlinger  
  sets out her view of what's wrong with the health caresystem  
  and how to fix it. You'd best read it so you can decide which side  
  you will be on when the battle is joined_.
  
  
  —PAUL LEVY
  
  
  CEO, BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL,
  
  
  BOSTON, MA
  
  
  _Regina Herzlinger, the nation's leading expert on consumer-driven  
  health care, has given us a brillia