Bestselling author T. R. Reid
guides a whirlwind tour of
successful health care systems worldwide,
revealing possible paths
toward U.S. reform
In The Healing of
America, New York Times
bestselling author T. R. Reid shows how all the other
industrialized democracies have achieved something the United
States can’t seem to do: provide health care for everybody at a
reasonable cost.
In his global quest to find a possible prescription,
Reid visits wealthy, free market, industrialized democracies
like our own—including France, Germany, Japan, the U.K.,
and Canada—where he finds inspiration in example. Reid
shares evidence from doctors, government officials, health care
experts, and patients the world over, finding that foreign health
care systems give everybody quality care at an affordable cost.
And that dreaded monster “socialized medicine”
turns out to be a myth. Many developed countries provide
universal coverage with private doctors, private hospitals, and
private insurance.
In addition to long-established systems, Reid also
studies countries that have carried out major health care
reform. The first question facing these countries—and the
United States, for that matter—is an ethical issue: Is health
care a human right? Most countries have already answered with
a resolute yes, leaving the United States in the murky moral
backwater with nations we typically think of as far less just than
our own.
The Healing of America lays bare the moral question
at the heart of our troubled system, dissecting the misleading
rhetoric surrounding the health care debate. Reid sees problems
elsewhere, too: He finds poorly paid doctors in Japan, endless
lines in Canada, mistreated patients in Britain, spartan facilities
in France. Still, all the other rich countries operate at a lower
cost, produce better health statistics, and cover everybody.
In the end, The Healing of America is a good news book: It
finds models around the world that Americans can borrow to
guarantee health care for everybody who needs it.
