Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it.The problem, Reinhardt says, is not one of economics but of social ethics. There is no American political consensus on a fundamental question other countries settled long ago: to what extent should we be our brothers' and sisters' keepers when it comes to health care? Drawing on the best evidence, he guides readers through the chaotic, secretive, and inefficient way America finances health care, and he offers a penetrating ethical analysis of recent reform proposals. At this point, he argues, the United States appears to have three stark choices: the government can make the rich help pay for the health care of the poor, ration care by income, or control costs. Reinhardt proposes an alternative path: that by age 26 all Americans must choose either to join an insurance arrangement with community-rated premiums, or take a chance on being uninsured or relying on a health insurance market that charges premiums based on health status.An incisive look at the American health care system, Priced Out dispels the confusion, ignorance, myths, and misinformation that hinder effective reform.

    For many, the right to die often means the right to die with dignity. The Inevitable moves beyond margins of the law to the people who are meticulously planning their final hours--far from medical offices, legislative chambers, hospital ethics committees, and polite conversation--and the people who help them, loved ones or clandestine groups on the Internet known as the "euthanasia underground."Katie Engelhart, a veteran journalist, focuses on six people representing different aspects of the debate. Two are doctors: a California physician who runs a boutique assisted-death clinic and has written more lethal prescriptions than anyone else in the U.S.; an Australian named Philip Nitschke who lost his medical license for teaching people how to end their lives painlessly and peacefully at "DIY Death" workshops. The other four chapters belong to people who said they wanted to die because they were suffering unbearably--of old age, chronic illness, dementia, and mental anguish--and saw suicide as their only option. Spanning Australia, North America, and Europe, Engelhart presents a deeply reported portrait of everyday people struggling to make hard decisions, and wrestling back a measure of authenticity and dignity to their lives.

    As patients, we wrongly assume the "best" care is dependent mainly on the newest medications, the most complex treatments, and the smartest doctors. But Americans look for health-care solutions in the wrong places. For example, hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved each year if doctors reduced common errors and maximized preventive medicine. For Dr. Robert Pearl, these kinds of mistakes are a matter of professional importance, but also personal significance: he lost his own father due in part to poor communication and treatment planning by doctors. And consumers make costly mistakes too: we demand modern information technology from our banks, airlines, and retailers, but we passively accept last century's technology in our health care. Solving the challenges of health care starts with understanding these problems. Mistreated explains why subconscious misperceptions are so common in medicine, and shows how modifying the structure, technology, financing, and leadership of American health care could radically improve quality outcomes. This important book proves we can overcome our fears and faulty assumptions, and provides a roadmap for a better, healthier future.

    Now, in Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause, the editors of the classic guide discuss the transition of menopause. With a preface by Vivian Pinn, M.D., the director of the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause includes definitive information from the latest research and personal stories from a diverse group of women. Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause provides an in-depth look at subjects such as hormone therapy and sexuality as well as proven strategies for coping with challenges like hot flashes, mood swings, and night sweats. In clear, accessible language, the book dispels menopause myths and provides crucial information that women can use to take control of their own health and get the best care possible. Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause is an essential resource for women who are experiencing -- or expecting -- menopause.

    Our health care is staggeringly expensive, yet one in six Americans has no health insurance. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors. In this gripping, eye-opening book, award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee takes readers inside the hospital to dismantle some of our most venerated myths about American medicine. Using vivid examples of real patients and physicians, Overtreated debunks the idea that most of medicine is based in sound science, and shows how our health care system delivers huge amounts of unnecessary care that is not only expensive and wasteful but can actually imperil the health of patients.The interests of politicians and the medical-industrial complex continually trump those of patients, seducing the wealthy with unnecessary procedures and leaving the poor with haphazard access to treatment. Backward economic incentives allow patients with chronic conditions to receive ineffective care, and roll after roll of red tape undermines even the best-intentioned doctors. Tens of thousands of patients die each year from overtreatment. American medicine is in desperate need of fixing.Nevertheless, Overtreated ultimately conveys a message of hope by reframing the debate over health care reform. Americans worry about rationing--that any effort to rein in the high cost of health care will result in limited access to life-saving treatments. Covering the uninsured seems like an insurmountable problem because it will drive up costs even more. Overtreated offers a way to control costs and cover the uninsured, while simultaneously improving the quality of American medicine. Shannon Brownlee's humane, intelligent, and penetrating analysis empowers readers to avoid the perils of overtreatment, as well as pointing the way to better health care for everyone.

    This essential resource includes the most current information on theory, research, and practice at individual, interpersonal, and community and group levels. This edition includes substantial new content on current and emerging theories of health communication, e-health, culturally diverse communities, health promotion, the impact of stress, the importance of networks and community, social marketing, and evaluation.

    We are overwhelmed by information from all sides—whether our doctors’ recommendations, dissenting experts, confusing statistics, or testimonials on the Internet. Now Doctors Groopman and Hartzband reveal that each of us has a “medical mind,” a highly individual approach to weighing the risks and benefits of treatments. Are you a minimalist or a maximalist, a believer or a doubter, do you look for natural healing or the latest technology? The authors weave vivid narratives of real patients with insights from recent research to demonstrate the power of the medical mind. After reading this groundbreaking book, you will know how to arrive at choices that serve you best.

    Hyman's revolutionary weight-loss program, based on the #1 New York Times bestseller The Blood Sugar Solution, supercharged for immediate results! The key to losing weight and keeping it off is maintaining low insulin levels. Based on Dr. Hyman's groundbreaking Blood Sugar Solution program, The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet presents strategies for reducing insulin levels and producing fast and sustained weight loss. Dr. Hyman explains how to: activate your natural ability to burn fat -- especially belly fat; reduce inflammation; reprogram your metabolism; shut off your fat-storing genes; de-bug your digestive system; create effortless appetite control; and soothe the stress to shed the pounds. With practical tools designed to achieve optimum wellness, including meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists, as well as step-by-step, easy-to-follow advice on green living, supplements, medication, exercise, and more, The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet is the fastest way to lose weight, prevent disease, and feel your best.

    This updated edition of the Health Care Handbook covers:• New sections on health IT, team-based care and health care quality• A clear summary of health policy and the Affordable Care Act• Inpatient & outpatient health care and delivery systems• Health insurance and the factors that make health care so expensive• Concise summaries of 32 different health professions• Medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and the research world• And much, much moreThe Handbook is the one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system and major issues the system faces today. It is rigorously researched and scrupulously unbiased yet written in a conversational and humorous tone that's a pleasure to read and illuminates the convoluted health care system and its many components. The Handbook is now used by hundreds of academic programs and health care companies.Each section of the book includes an introduction to the key facts and foundations that make the health care system work along with balanced analyses of the major challenges and controversies within health care, including medical errors, government regulation, medical malpractice, and much more. Suggested readings are included for readers who wish to learn more about specific topics.

    What is going on? Anatomy of an Epidemic challenges readers to think through that question themselves. First, Whitaker investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in fact, create them? Researchers spent decades studying that question, and by the late 1980s, they had their answer. Readers will be startled—and dismayed—to discover what was reported in the scientific journals. Then comes the scientific query at the heart of this book: During the past fifty years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, what did they find? Did they discover that the drugs help people stay well? Function better? Enjoy good physical health? Or did they find that these medications, for some paradoxical reason, increase the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness?  This is the first book to look at the merits of psychiatric medications through the prism of long-term results. Are long-term recovery rates higher for medicated or unmedicated schizophrenia patients? Does taking an antidepressant decrease or increase the risk that a depressed person will become disabled by the disorder? Do bipolar patients fare better today than they did forty years ago, or much worse? When the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) studied the long-term outcomes of children with ADHD, did they determine that stimulants provide any benefit?  By the end of this review of the outcomes literature, readers are certain to have a haunting question of their own: Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public?  In this compelling history, Whitaker also tells the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. Finally, he reports on innovative programs of psychiatric care in Europe and the United States that are producing good long-term outcomes. Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up.

    In Just Ride—“the bible for bicycle riders” (Dave Eggers, New York Times Book Review)—Petersen debunked the bicycle racing– industrial complex and led readers back to the simple joys of getting on a bike.In Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog, Petersen upends the last 30 years of conventional health wisdom to offer a clear path to weight loss and fitness. In more than 100 short, compelling directives, Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog shows why we should drop the carbs, embrace fat, and hang up our running shoes, with the latest science to back up its claims.

    At once a riveting story of the birth of an enterprise—ala Tracy Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine—and a inspiring tale of the indomitable human spirit in the vein of Erin Brockovich and A Civil Action, The Cure is a testament to ingenuity, unflagging will, and unconquerable love.

    Enduring half a dozen surgeries, the drugs he received were both miraculous and essential to his recovery. But his most profound suffering came several months later when he went into acute opioid withdrawal while following his physician’s orders. Over the course of four excruciating weeks, Rieder learned what it means to be “dope sick”—the physical and mental agony caused by opioid dependence. Clueless how to manage his opioid taper, Travis’s doctors suggested he go back on the drugs and try again later. Yet returning to pills out of fear of withdrawal is one route to full-blown addiction. Instead, Rieder continued the painful process of weaning himself.Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable. As he recounts his story, Rieder provides a fascinating look at the history of these drugs first invented in the 1800s, changing attitudes about pain management over the following decades, and the implementation of the pain scale at the beginning of the twenty-first century. He explores both the science of addiction and the systemic and cultural barriers we must overcome if we are to address the problem effectively in the contemporary American healthcare system.In Pain in America is not only a gripping personal account of dependence, but a groundbreaking exploration of the intractable causes of America’s opioid problem and their implications for resolving the crisis. Rieder makes clear that the opioid crisis exists against a backdrop of real, debilitating pain—and that anyone can fall victim to this epidemic.

    In today's world, there are poisons and pathogens that threaten our health starting before we're even born, and they continue to hold us back as we encounter them in our everyday life.Cleansing is a vital tool for fighting against these burdens--as long as you go about it the right way. That's why you need this book. Anthony William, the Medical Medium, has placed a vast wealth of insight and information into a one-stop resource for cleansing of all kinds, starting with his acclaimed nine-day 3:6:9 Cleanse and expanding into life-saving protocols for specific health needs--including an anti-bug cleanse, a morning cleanse, and a heavy metal detox.You'll discover: - How to choose the cleanse that's right for you - A deep dive into the causes of your symptoms and conditions - Critical cleanse dos and don'ts, including modifications and substitutions - The truth about trendy topics such as intermittent fasting and the microbiome - A guide to supplements you may choose to add to your cleanse - The physical reasons why cleansing can be an emotional experience - More than 75 recipes and sample menus to get you through your Medical Medium cleanse - Spiritual and soul support to remind you that healing is possibleThe cleanses in this book speak to what's truly going wrong inside of our bodies that no trendy lifestyle approach can ever address, Anthony writes. Have compassion for yourself and know that your suffering is not your fault. Your struggles are not your fault. You're accomplishing great things every single hour and day as you work on your healing process with the powerful tools in this book. I believe you can heal.

    In this moving and compassionate book, hospice nurses Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley share their intimate experiences with patients at the end of life, drawn from more than twenty years experience tending the terminally ill. Through their stories we come to appreciate the near-miraculous ways in which the dying communicate their needs, reveal their feelings, and even choreograph their own final moments; we also discover the gifts—of wisdom, faith, and love—that the dying leave for the living to share.Filled with practical advice on responding to the requests of the dying and helping them prepare emotionally and spiritually for death, Final Gifts shows how we can help the dying person live fully to the very end.