The New Yorker on Healthcare Reform

Last month, the New Yorker published an incredible piece about healthcare reform, and it's up online for you to read for free! Atul Gawande really dives deep into the system with a few case analyses, looking at both ends of the healthcare spectrum. Without being obnoxious about value judgments, Gawnade is able to paint an amazing picture of the current state of healthcare in the US, as well as the problems associated with the economic incentives created by the system in place.

He's got some really interesting tidbits, like this one (FTA):

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coordination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later? Getting the country’s best electrician on the job (he trained at Harvard, somebody tells you) isn’t going to solve this problem. Nor will changing the person who writes him the check

It's a long read, but definitely block off some time and check it out. It's on the New Yorker's online page, but even so, this article almost makes me want to resubscribe...

via the New Yorker