Foreword by Harvey V. Fineberg, President of the Institute of Medicine
For decades, experts have puzzled over why the US spends more on health care but suffers poorer outcomes than other industrialized nations. Now Elizabeth H. Bradley and Lauren A. Taylor marshal extensive research, including a comparative study of health care data from thirty countries, and get to the root of this paradox: We've left out of our tally the most impactful expenditures countries make to improve the health of their populations—investments in social services.
InThe American Health Care Paradox, Bradley and Taylor illuminate how narrow definitions of “health care,” archaic divisions in the distribution of health and social services, and our allergy to government programs combine to create needless suffering in individual lives, even as health care spending continues to soar. They show us how and why the US health care “system” developed as it did; examine the constraints on, and possibilities for, reform; and profile inspiring new initiatives from around the world.
Offering a unique and clarifying perspective on the problems the Affordable Care Act won't solve, this book also points a new way forward.
Elizabeth H. Bradleyis the president of Vassar College, professor of science, technology, and society, and professor of political science. She has been a recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, and was previously the founder and faculty director of the Global Health Leadership Institute at Yale University and served as hospital administrator at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Lauren A. Taylorstudies public health and medical ethics at Harvard Divinity School, where she is a presidential scholar. She was formerly a program manager at the Yale Global Health Leadership Institutl“G
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