The Medical Freedom Channel

Note: This originally ran as part 1 of a 4-part “review” of this most valuable book. It is noted here for those who might not have seen the review before; the book is still just as valid as it was several years ago.

I just received last week a copy of the newest analysis of “healthcare” and how it has gone so miserably wrong. Maggie Mahar’s Money-Driven Medicine is taking me a little time to work through it, but every step so far has been both enjoyable and enlightening.

However, since I am only about a quarter of the way into this extensively researched volume (about 350 pages of text, plus extensive endnotes, bibliography and index), I will refrain from attempting a full review at this point. Instead, I want to focus on just the historical perspective Ms. Mahar presents, from the standpoint of the book’s Preface and opening two chapters. If this whets your appetite for the rest of the book, so much the better; if not, perhaps in another week or two, in a subsequent editorial here, I can get through enough of the rest of the text to offer a more thorough critique and synopsis, if not of the book itself, at least of its conclusions about how we can get from today’s mess to a better, less costly and coercive, and more effective system for promoting and providing wellness in our society.

The preface to “MDM” is almost worth the cost of the book all by itself. Mahar pulls few punches if any, in noting that there is no single direction for finger-pointing in finding fault with the current fiasco known as “America’s healthcare system.”