As I’ve mentioned before, I do extra credit book clubs with my students.
After one book club, one of my students recommended The Healing of America, so I made it our book for the next quarter.
Reid lays out the problems with American healthcare, which is fundamentally about our paradox. We spend more than anyone else, but we’re definitely not healthier. And not all of us have access to care. We let people die of manageable diseases.
Reid takes his own imperfect body around the world to look at how other developed nations handle care.
Along the way, he addresses common American misconceptions about the rest of the world, about too-long wait times, rationed care, etc.
I was surprised when my 104F students told me that Reid’s book surprised them. They had believed all those myths.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t know much about how the rest of the world worked when I was their age, but I thought they might know more about their field–and how fucked up it is.
One smart, tightly-wound student managed to shock me, though. After the other students talked about how they would definitely want to work in systems where insurance companies couldn’t override doctors, etc., one student said she was against affordable healthcare.
“If anyone can come to my office–if it’s not expensive to see me–then they won’t respect my degree and how much work I’ve done.”
Another student pushed back.
“So you would rather work in a system where someone could die because they couldn’t afford treatment?”
“Yes.”
