The social transformation of American medicine
by Paul Starr · first published 1978
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
History of how American medicine became professionalized and organized, tracing the political and economic forces behind it. Recommended for readers wanting context on US healthcare.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
An esoteric, intelligent, and scholarly book on how the industry of medicine in the US. If you really want to understand how medicine has become a business instead of a noble profession is understandable after this must read book. You can pretend to have an understanding or you can actually know what you are talking about. This book is well researched and referenced but does not read as an academic treatise.
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They actively pursue minimizing the number of medical school seats and their lobbying has been tightly aligned with Republican health care policies for decades. Check out Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine
on “The Dark Side of Doctoring” ↗…Health Care, for example, is one of those things where, if you're not thinking about supply, spending more money just makes everything more expensive. If you haven't, I highly recommend Paul Starr's Social Transformation of American Medicine. The number of MD medical school seats in the US has remained at about 16k-17k for 100 years. https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/starr-medici...
on “Electric vehicle battery costs rapidly declining, Tesla cited as leading” ↗…talking heads) If you're serious about learning, stop listening to these people (seriously, it's a waste of your one precious life) and try taking a healthcare economics class or reading Paul Starr's Social Transformation of American Medicine.
on “Medicare will require hospitals to post prices online” ↗Just a plug for Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine. It's the definitive text on healthcare in America. After that, all the other writing is quaint. On a separate note, you should have seen the fear on the faces of the retired English couple I saw today…
on “Why an MRI costs $1,080 in America and $280 in France” ↗One term, one book. Term: risk pool -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_pool Book: The Social Transformation of American Medicine -- http://www.amazon.com/The-Social-Transformation-American-Med...
on “When A Daughter Dies” ↗The definitive treatment is Paul Starr's Social Transformation of American Medicine http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142863.The_Social_Transfo... Tl;dr: adverse selection is one of many reasons we are where we are.
on “Productivity and the Work Week (2000)” ↗…major ankle trauma surgery for 6 weeks until his insurance kicked in. The alternative was $40,000 out-of-pocket. Sounds like you really don't like the single-payer system. Let me recommend Paul Starr's "Social Transformation of American Medicine". I'm pretty sure he hates the system more than you do, but his book walks through the history of how we got here while other countries got to other outcomes. It becomes undeniably obvious that opinions…
on “An American Doctor Experiences the NHS Again” ↗Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine is the standard text on these issues.
on “The Problem of Doctors’ Salaries” ↗See Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine for an in depth discussion.
on “Ask HN: What weird or hard problems are you trying to solve?” ↗I believe the correct title is "The Social Transformation of American Medicine". Dry as hell, but an insightful book.
on “Physician burnout widespread, especially among those midcareer, report says” ↗The Social Transformation of American Medicine is an illuminating read. Much of how we got here came in the form of, essentially, patches on top of patches, some of which were for good reasons, some of which were not.
on “Hospitals lift curtain on prices, reveals giant swings for hips, knees and more” ↗…topics that don’t conflict with church teachings or business interests. But trust in science has never been universal. Trust in institutions and experts had to be built painstakingly over generations. The Social Transformation of American Medicine is a great account of this process for American doctors.
on “Measles surge in Utah sparks fears US could undo decades of progress” ↗The second half of _The Social Transformation of American Medicine_, by Paul Starr, covers a lot of the history of American healthcare in the WW1-to-1980 period. (There's an epub at mobilism.)
on “Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger problem than corporate taxes” ↗I’m reading William Vollmann’s Imperial (a book about the eponymous county in CA) , Richard White’s “The Republic for Which it Stands” (a history of reconstruction and the gilded age), and Paul Starr’s “Social Transformation of American Medicine”.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗…need.” These laws are dumb but don’t exist in 15-20 states at this point. More entry would be great, but you need more doctors, more competition and more price transparency too. >> In the book " The Social Transformation of American Medicine" they talk a lot about how hospitals rent-seeking behavior is to turn themselves as a non-profit, and then ask for federal funding and getting that denied to for-profit hospitals, effectively capping…
on “Leaked Scripps records reveal automated mark-ups for hospital care” ↗