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We heard it all through the election process and we continue to hear of its importance to the new administration: health care reform! We have divided this page into two sections:
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| The resources below are organized by the types of groups issuing the statements. |
U.S. Government |
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| President-Elect Barack Obama |
The President-Elect's current web site, www.change.gov, has a review of his proposed health care reform.
The Obama-Biden Health Care Reform page also offers you the opportunity to share your ideas. |
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| Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Senate |
Making the connection between the state of the economy and the need for health care reform, Sen. Baucus has issued a white paper called, Call to Action: Health Reform 2009
For a copy of his introductory comments, see the Senate Finance Committee's web page on health reform.
For a PDF file of the complete white paper issued by Sen. Baucus, use Adobe Reader to open Call to Action: Health Reform 2009 |
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Health Organizations |
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| American Hospital Association (AHA) |
The American Hospital Association's AHANews.com had the following items on Nov. 20, 3008.
"Health plans yesterday proposed guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing conditions in conjunction with an enforceable individual coverage mandate. Under a proposal by America's Health Insurance Plans, health plans participating in the individual insurance market would be required to offer coverage to all applicants as part of a universal participation plan. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association also voiced support for such a proposal. "Coupling a requirement that insurers must offer coverage to everyone regardless of health status with an effective requirement that everyone have insurance would enable insurers to offer coverage to everyone regardless of their health status ? without the unintended consequence of premium increases," said BCBSA President and CEO Scott Serota." |
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| American Medical Association |
The American Medical Association has a web page devoted to its concerns for Americans who do not have health insurance. The web page is called Voice for the Uninsured.
On that web page is the AMA Reform Proposal, which we have copied here in PDF format. You can open it with Adobe Reader. |
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Insurance Companies |
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| America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) |
AHIP is the national association representing nearly 1,300 member companies providing health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans.
They issued a press release on November 19, 2008 regarding proposed health care reform concerning pre-existing conditions and an individual coverage mandate. Since press releases disappear off web sites fairly quickly, a PDF file of this release is attached here.
AHIP has a web section that sites many of their health care reform proposals. |
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| BlueCross BlueShield Association (BCBSA) |
BCBSA offers a couple of documents. They have a web page called Thinking About Healthcare Reform: The Key Facts.
Also, BCBSA issued a press release on Nov. 19, 2008 regarding proposals that would mandate that everyone has health care and that providers could not exclude anyone due to pre-existing conditions. Since press releases disappear off web sites fairly quickly, a PDF file of this release is attached here. |
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| The following are library materials that deal with health care reform, the cost of prescription drugs, health care costs, and the uninsured. |
| Title/Author |
Summary |
ALP Call No. |
Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis
by Tom Daschle, Secretary-Elect of the Department of Health and Human Services |
A much-needed and hard-hitting plan, from one of the great Democratic minds of our time, to reform Americas broken health-care system. Undoubtedly, the biggest domestic policy issue in the coming years will be Americas health-care system.nbsp; Millions of Americans go without medical care because they cant afford it, and many others are mired in debt because they cant pay their medical bills. Its hard to think of another public policy problem that has lingered unaddressed for so long. Why have we failed to solve a problem that is such a high priority for so many citizens? Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle believes the problem is rooted in the complexity of the health-care issue and the power of the interest groups: doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug companies, researchers, patient advocates that have a direct stake in it. Rather than simply pointing out the major flaws and placing blame, Daschle offers key solutions and creates a blueprint for solving the crisis. Daschles solution lies in the Federal Reserve Board, which has overseen the equally complicated financial system with great success. A Fed-like health board would offer a public framework within which a private health-care system can operate more effectively and efficiently insulated from political pressure yet accountable to elected officials and the American people. Daschle argues that this independent board would create a single standard of care and exert tremendous influence on every other provider and payer, even those in the private sector. After decades of failed incremental measures, the American health-care system remains fundamentally broken and requires a comprehensive fix. With his bold and forward-looking plan, Daschle points us to the solution. |
On Order |
The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs
by Merrill Goozner |
Why do life-saving prescription drugs cost so much? Drug companies insist that prices merely reflect the millions they invest in research and development. In this expose, Merrill Goozner contends that American taxpayers are in fact footing the bill twice: once by supporting government funded research and again by paying astronomically high prices for prescription drugs. |
338.43 GOO |
Ethical Health Care Reform: Person-Focused Reorganization
by Ignacio Ripoll |
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362.1 RIP |
Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much
by Maggie Mahar |
Health care costs in the United States are far higher than most other comparable countries, yet the health care system remains "staggeringly inefficient," in the words financial journalist Mahar. Based on interviews with physicians, patients, hospital administrators, policy makers, researchers, insurers, drug makers, device makers, corporate executives, and other insiders, her work investigates how health care dollars are allocated and whether they are used wisely. In the end, she concludes that the problem is that having a money-driven system leads major inefficiencies and bad short term decisions at all levels of the system. |
338.43 MAH |
Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs
by Melody Petersen |
Justifying her sensationalist title with thorough documentation, award-winning business journalist Petersen, who spent four years covering the pharmaceutical beat for the New York Times, presents a truly disturbing book. Focusing on events within her home state of Iowa, Petersen describes the out-of-control trajectory of America's most powerful industry as it co-opts physicians with swag, subverts peer review and continuing education, turns cash-strapped university medical schools into corporate tools, and drains public coffers to pay exploding Medicaid-funded prescription costs. As a result, U.S. citizens face astronomical health-care and insurance bills, more than 100,000 deaths annually attributable to prescription drugs "taken as directed," and shortened life expectancies. As Greg Critser did in Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies, Petersen takes readers beyond glossy advertising and celebrity endorsements to glimpse the alarming dark side of the American pharmaceutical industry. |
338.4 PET |
Reasonable Rx: Solving the Drug Price Crisis
by Stan Finkelstein |
Table of Contents: Drugs and drug prices -- The American way to discover drugs -- The drug industry today -- Are drug companies risky? -- How not to lower drug prices -- Squandering R&D resources -- How to lower drug prices -- Our solution in detail. |
338.486 FIN |
Severed Trust: Why American Medicine Hasn't Been Fixed
by George D. Lundberg |
Lundberg, editor-in-chief and executive vice president of a provider of medical information on the Internet, charges that organized medicine suffers from domination by a political-industrial complex that underfunds prevention, undermines scientific research, and overlooks patients' needs. He decries the erosion of profession standards and values and exposes the continued use of unproven medical procedures with little chance of success. He calls for a system in which preventive care is paid for by government and catastrophic care for all is covered by insurance. The author is on the faculties of Northwestern University and Harvard. |
362.1 LUN |
| Sick Around the World |
Four in five Americans say the U.S. health-care system needs "fundamental" change. Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health-care system, or are these nations so culturally different from us that their solutions would simply not be acceptable to Americans? FRONTLINE correspondent T.R. Reid examines first-hand the health-care systems of other advanced capitalist democracies -- UK, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan -- to see what tried and tested ideas might help us reform our broken health-care system. |
DVD 393 SIC |
| Sicko |
Michael Moore interviews Americans who have been denied treatment by the United States health care insurance companies -- companies who sacrifice essential health services in order to maximize profits. Sheds light on the how complicated it can become for communities and individuals, and the sacrifices they have made when they are denied health care coverage. |
DVD 362.1 SIC |
Uninsured in America: Life and Death in the Land of Opportunity
by Susan Starr Sered |
Uninsured in America goes beyond the headlines to understand the experiences of the more than 40 million Americans who are without health insurance. The vivid and moving stories told in the book demonstrate that the current structure of our health care system brings us all potentially one illness, one family crisis, one pink slip away from sliding into a lethal vortex of ill health, medical debt, and marginal employability. |
362.104 SER |
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| 13-Dec-2008 |
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