A Doctor Talks About the State of Healthcare in America

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Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, has just written a book that is sure to make everyone uncomfortable-doctors, politicians and patients. Perhaps, that’s just the type of medicine we all need right now. Too often, the discussion about healthcare in this country becomes a political sound bite or an opportunity to attack one group or another. This is a book that attempts to tell the real story and how to fix some of the systemic problems that plague the system.
In an interview with the NY Times about the book, Dr. Brawley notes, “I started looking at my career, listening to the discussions going on about health care reform and health care costs being exorbitant. A lot of people didn’t seem to realize that in a lot of the discussion, we’re talking about human beings who are suffering because of lack of health care, and sometimes we’re suffering because of overuse of health. People are so focused on fears about rationing of health care. The talk should not be about rationing health care but about rational health care. So much of what we do in health care is irrational.”

Jared Green
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