American Healthcare: Spending more is getting us less

It’s amazing sometimes how simple ideas get lost in the big picture.  Back in 1923, President Warren Harding proposed a federal department to look after the nation's health, education and welfare.  The department was finally created by Eisenhower in 1953.  In 1979, Education was spun off and we created the department of Health AND Human Services.

Clearly as a nation, we’ve long understood the connection between health and human services.  Yet the way our health care system has evolved, preventive care, and human services have been almost abandoned as part of the health care enterprise.

Today we spend more money, per capita, on health care than any other nation.  Yet our outcomes, are near the bottom.  How did this happen, especially when we seemed to understand all along that there was a connection?

Is the fault in our government, our doctors, in our philosophy or in ourselves?  Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren Taylor set out to try and find out.  The result is their book The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More is Getting Us Less

My conversation with Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren Taylor: