The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care

I am in Healthcare IT area and I learned lots of insights about the problems of the healthcare industry from this book for excelling our product offer to physicians. Great Book Great Author...

Be ready for a very intense bit of reading, each sentence in this book is full of information and is needed to understand the next sentence. Even so, if you have the time and energy, you wouldn't go wrong to pick it up. It helps explain the development of the current situation of healthcare in the US, and it does it from an analytical, economic perspective, which is important in this day of feelings and propaganda.

This book is an excellent primer that reviews the economics of healthcare. There is ample coverage of the history and the contemporary state of the subject that is organized and presented with clarity. Professor Dranove's conclusions are logically linked with fundamental economic principles that should enlighten both those with a healthcare background in the business aspects and those with a business background in the healthcare aspects of the largest market in the world. This is a "must-read" for people in any healthcare space and for business people desiring to increase their knowledge in the field presented in an easily digestible manner. I have derived much of this knowledge from various far-flung sources, but Professor Dranove's work does a better job of condensing valuable information on healthcare economics in a single manuscript than I was able to locate previously. I had the pleasure of Professor Dranove's instruction during my MBA studies at Kellogg and can attest to his expert knowledge and informed perspectives in both economic strategy and healthcare as presented here.

Certainly the economics of American healthcare is an issue that has risen into the social consciousness in the last several decades. The issues are complex, but important to anyone who may be a provider or consumer of healthcare. Since this includes all of us, you might expect this book to have broad appeal. However, I doubt that it will.Do not let the lighthearted subtitle "From Marcus Welby to Managed Care" beguile you into thinking this is causal reading. It is not. It is a well-researched, well-written and scholarly look at changes in healthcare delivery in the last several decades. This does not lend itself to casual reading. While healthcare administrators and physicians may find this material worthy, it is not a book that many would read for enjoyment.Mr. Dranove has done a very fine job of concisely summarizing the issues in a very complicated subject. The reader is not presented with any equations or formulas and numbers and jargon are kept to a minimum. This is a very nice conceptual presentation of the issues surrounding largely unsuccessful attempts to reform American healthcare delivery. Emphasis is placed on prior attempts to affect marketplace forces and how these efforts failed because of unforeseen variables. The dullness of the material is not the fault of the author. The material is actually very well presented; it is just a very dry subject.If you are motivated to read this book, a better understanding of very important issues surrounding the economics of American healthcare will reward you. I found reading this book to be like taking bitter medicine. I'm better because of it, but I didn't enjoy it.

This is an excellent book that covers the most important functional elements of health economics. I am a teaching Clinical Professor of Pediatrics in the University of Virginia Health System and I plan to incorporate this book as a primary text for discussion in our resident program. The only deficiency is a lack of discussion of past, present, and future insurance models such as classic and discounted fee for service, capitation, defined benefit versus defined contribution, and medical savings accounts.

Dranove's book on managed care and the changes in healthcare delivery in the United States are well summarized in the opening chapters. Most importantly, however, is the author's insight into the core reasons for "deviations" in healthcare delivery, e.g. the economic incentives for offering healthcare services (or rationing of care) within managed care institutions, physicians and hospitals. Such understanding is truly critical to proposing any sort of rational solution to current managed care problems. Dranove's style and writing is excellent but buyer beware -- the non-medical reader should be aware that this topic in inherently dry despite its importance in our society. This book should be mandatory reading for all healthcare administrators, medical students and physicians.

"The Economic Evolution of American Health Care" provides an excellent summary of the factors which have created our current health care system. Prof. Dranove clearly understands the complexities of health care and the dynamics which drive much of the public debate around it.