The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care--and How to Fix It

This book must be amazing! My 91 year old mother asked me about this book that was just delivered at 6:45pm. I handed it to her. She just put the book down at 10:20 pm, went to bed.1. No book in the last year and a half has been able to keep her interest. She had given up reading.2. She has not stayed up past 7pm in about a year.3. She is half way through the book4. I can't wait to read this book that I bought for myself.

Greatly enlightening book

This is an amazing book! If we all would read read it, it would likely make us act quickly to improve health care: to make it more transparent, cheaper and safer, and to help eliminate the corruption that appears to inflate its costs and make it more dangerous.A must read book for students in the health care field, health care professionals and for anybody who wants to learn how the health care system truly operates, and how because of how it is so frequently disfuncional (despite the usually well intended health care professionals), why it is frequently so expensive and at times dangerous too.A true masterpiece!Dr. Makary: thank you very much for taking the time to do the research to prepare this book and for writing this masterpiece! I especially enjoyed listening to the audio book version, narrated by you. Thank you very much!

I was active in health policy work for 40 years during my career. The Author of "The Price we pay" is quite accurate about the faults in our system and the injustices and failings they cause. The text was well written and while anecdotal, nonetheless presented a credible and entertaining story that was patient centered and clinically plausible. My disappointment with the book came in the pusilanimous solutions proposed, usually free market ideas about price transparency, etc. Most of these have been tried in some form and simply don't apply to the morass of perverse incentives so entrenched in the healthcare system. Something more, perhaps some form of single payer/Medicare for All, or other "public option" will be required to overcome the profit driven control of so many diverse stakeholders. A worthy work regardless to identify many of the problems few people realize exist. TA

Absolutely mind-blowing book. If you want an expert, data-driven, and shocking view of a few of the many factors that are driving up the costs of healthcare in America, and what can be done to stop the madness, you need to read this book. The book is now at the top of my list of influential books for the decade.Working in the healthcare industry myself and already having an inside view of how things operate, and knowing the ins and outs of fee for service vs. value based healthcare, etc, I thought I understood most of the key root causes behind increasing healthcare costs and decreased healthcare outcomes, but this book took things to a new level. After the first few chapters, I found myself utterly infuriated and outraged from specific examples of price gouging by some healthcare systems across the nation; downright criminal and greedy middlemen (insurance brokers and pharmaceutical PBMs or Pharmacy Benefit Managers with their hidden and obscene markups marketed as discounts); preditorial health screening of the elderly in churches; over-treatment by a small percentage of physician outliers who are gaming the system for personal gain and profit; for profit healthcare systems marking up their services to the point that patients are unable to pay and then either suing them or offering a 10% discount on their already 500% markup prices; and the overall perverse impacts of the lack of price transparency from those who have everything to lose by creating a fair and competitive marketplace. But by the middle of the book, Makary provides a glimmer of hope and some optimism based on the amazing work he and his colleagues are doing nation wide to combat perverse financial and medical practices, and force the healthcare industry to be incentivized on quality vs. quantity, price transparency vs. price gouging, data transparency, etc. Some significant steps forward have already occurred, outlined by Makary.