10/21/2013
Austin FraktWell over a week ago, a few wonks exchanged tweets with Harold and me about recommended health policy books. Below is a list built from my previously-read and to-read ones. Though I got something of value out of all of these, I certainly don’t endorse all their contents. For some of those about which I blogged (follow the links) I say why.
I discussed six good books in this “five books” interview:
- Inside National Health Reform, by John McDonough (more here)
- The Social Transformation of American Medicine, by Paul Starr (more here)
- Remedy and Reaction, by Paul Starr (more here)
- Bring Market Prices to Medicare, by Robert Coulam, Roger Feldman, and Bryan Dowd (more here)
- Your Money or Your Life, by David Cutler (more here)
- The Political Life of Medicare, by Jon Oberlander
I have also read and recommend you consider:
- Michael Hochman’s 50 Studies Every Doctor Should Know: The Key Studies that Form the Foundation of Evidence Based Medicine. (See also the website 50studies.com.)
- Sick, by Jon Cohn
- A Second Opinion, by Arnold Relman (more here)
- Jack Wennberg’s Tracking Medicine (a tiny bit about it here)
- Marcia Angell’s The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (more here)
- Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by John Goodman (see the series)
- The Cost Disease, by William Baumol and colleagues (see the series)
- Hippocrates’ Shadow, by David Newman
- David Goldhill’s Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father–and How We Can Fix It (see the series)
- Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande
- William Haseltine’s new book on Singapore’s health system (more here)
- Best Care Anywhere, by Philip Longman
The following are on my to-read list:
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
- Irrationality in Health Care: What Behavioral Economics Reveals About What We Do and Why, by Douglas Hough
- How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America, by Otis Webb Brawley and Paul Goldberg
- Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease, by Alan Cassels
- Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, by Gilbert Welch and colleagues
- The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care, by Martin Makary
- Who Shall Live?: Health, Economics and Social Choice, by Victor Fuchs
- Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, by Shannon Brownlee
- The Hippocratic Myth: Why Doctors Are Under Pressure to Ration Care, Practice Politics, and Compromise their Promise to Heal, by M. Gregg Bloche
That ought to keep you, and me, busy for quite some time. I’m sure there are many more worthy ones. Feel free to recommend them in the comments.
by Mike on October 21st, 2013 at 08:18
Thanks for this list. I have some new books to add to my Christmas list this year!
The two books I’ve read that had the most influence on how I look at the world of health care and insurance are The Healing of America by TR Reid and Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t include those on this list. Are those books you haven’t heard of or read before?
by John Goodman on October 21st, 2013 at 09:08
Thanks for including Priceless. I wish Aaron would read it.
by Aaron Carroll on October 21st, 2013 at 09:12
I swear it’s nothing personal. I’m a few chapters in. I’ve just been crushed lately. I will get back to it!
by John Goodman on October 21st, 2013 at 09:17
Not a problem.
by Bill Corfield (Reasonable Conversation) on October 21st, 2013 at 09:17
TR Reid’s The Healing of America; A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care was quite good…
by Peter Elias, MD on October 21st, 2013 at 19:18
I would add three:
1. Medicine in Denial by Lawrence and Lincoln Weed
2. Designing Care by Bohmer
3. Critical Decisions by Peter Ubel. (This last is admittedly not truly a ‘health policy’ book, but it is incredibly pertinent to health policy.)
And I would consider The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. It is not truly health focused but has valuable things to say about traditional management. It is, in some senses, a management focused companion to Innovator’s Prescription.
by david goldhill on October 21st, 2013 at 23:45
Thank you for including Catastrophic Care. In very good company on this list.
by Batocchio on October 22nd, 2013 at 03:32
Thanks for the recs. I’m also a fan of Reid’s book (that others have mentioned) and the Frontline doc that spawned it. I’ve read excerpts from a few of the books above, but just a few!
by Floccina on October 22nd, 2013 at 14:03
I liked Overtreated and along that line I liked “The Last Well Person” By Nortin Hadler.