China has one: Daniel Asa Rose, Larry's Kidney.

We need one: Sally Satel, ed. When Altruism Isn't Enough.

Background:

More than 1,000 Americans die every year awaiting a kidney transplant. Surgeons in the U.S. perform about 7,000 of the transplants annually, but that doesn't come close to meeting demand. As many as 250,000 patients require kidney dialysis — all of them subsidized by Medicare — but half of them are deemed not sick enough to warrant referral to a transplant program. The wait for a kidney transplant from a cadaver-donor can take seven years.

Mea culpa. Many apologies. My bad.

Some time back I took a whack at Clayton Christensen, without having read his book. My mistake. His book, The Innovator's Prescription, co-written with Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang, is actually much closer to my own way of thinking about health care than anything I have read in quite some time.

I was misled on two counts. First, by a New York Times article that linked Christensen with Uwe Reinhardt and Alain Enthoven. Second, by the publicity for the book itself. The adage is wrong. You often can judge a book by its cover, at least by the blurbs on the cover. In this case, a whole slew of adulations by Tom Daschle and other people who are known for taking a technocratic, noneconomic approach to health care adorn the book jacket. There are no quotes from Regi Herzlinger, Mark Pauly, Mark McClellan — or other people known to have taken Econ 101.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Christensen and his colleagues quote Milton Friedman, warn repeatedly against single-payer systems ("access to a waiting list is not access to health care"), argue against more government regulation and make a full-throated case for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), especially in the treatment of the chronically ill. They also defend specialty hospitals and walk-in clinics, reject such current fads as medical homes and a top-down approach to electronic medical records, advocate high-deductible insurance with HSAs for the uninsured and explain why evidenced-based medicine and pay-for-performance (at least as currently envisioned) won't work.

Indeed, one wonders if the authors of the blurbs made the same mistake I made — spouting off without actually reading the book.

My favorite piece of music
Sung by the twentieth century's greatest soprano

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Greg Dattilo and Dave Racer are two insurance men with lots of experience and understanding of what's right and wrong in U.S. health care. Every couple of years they write a book, and they've just published Why Health Care Costs So Much: The Solution – Consumers. 

It's a rare book (actually a "booklet") about health policy that is fun to read (Top Ten Myths of American Health Care being another recent example). Plus, at 80 pages (including drawings) and available in bulk for only $1.50 each, you can buy a box and hand them out like religious tracts. Continue reading »

Not so fast. Before we rush to follow Keynesian prescriptions for our current economic woes, everyone should stop, take a deep breath, and read Robert Samuelson's new book about Keynesian economics and the economists who gave Keynesian advice to both Democrat and Republican presidents. It's also about arrogance, hubris and chutzpah. It's about people whose advice caused great harm and who would have kept on causing harm had policymakers continued to listen. Continue reading »