Why Our Health Matters

Our healthcare system has reached a crisis. Millions now go without coverage, and those who have insurance are often crippled by enormous medical debt, expensive prescriptions, and astronomical premiums. Policy makers on all sides have offered their opinions, but here, Dr. Andrew Weil weighs in not as a top-down policy wonk, but as an experienced and respected member of the medical community. Why Our Health Matters describes the cracks in the foundation of American healthcare, urging physicians, policy makers, and, most importantly, average Americans to advocate for a complete overhaul of a system which is on the brink of collapse. Perhaps more importantly, Dr. Weil offers a comprehensive vision for the future.
In what Dr. Weil calls "The Golden Age of Medicine", the medical profession was understood as a social service, with doctors dedicated to hands-on primary care. Today, healthcare is driven by specialization and profit-pharmaceutical companies promote reliance on high-techmedical gadgets and drugs to fix every problem; patients reinforce these ills by requesting immediate results and cures in pill form. To combat this, Dr. Weil advocates for a restructuring not only of the healthcare system itself, but of our culture's attitudes towards medical care.
Weil catalogs the three myths Americans believe about their health care, dissects the four major players who have seriously damaged our health care and lays out a comprehensive plan for greatly improving the care of patients in this country.