Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee

Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee

Our health care is staggeringly expensive, yet one in six Americans has no health insurance. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors. In this gripping, eye-opening book, award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee takes readers inside the hospital to dismantle some of our most venerated myths about American medicine. Brownlee dissects what she calls the medical-industrial complex and lays bare the backward economic incentives embedded in our system, revealing a stunning portrait of the care we now receive.

Nevertheless, Overtreated ultimately conveys a message of hope by reframing the debate over health care reform. It offers a way to control costs and cover the uninsured, while simultaneously improving the quality of American medicine. Shannon Brownlee's humane, intelligent, and penetrating analysis empowers readers to avoid the perils of overtreatment, as well as pointing the way to better health care for everyone.

Shannon Brownlee is an award-winning journalist whose articles and essays on medicine, health care, and biotechnology have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and Time, among other publications. She was born and reared in Honolulu and graduated from the University of California with a master's degree in biology. She works at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. as a senior fellow. Brownlee, her husband, and their son live in Annapolis, Maryland.