Current Events Book Group The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by T.R. Reid.

Each month we will choose books that cover diverse opinions about events occurring in the world—economic, political, social and international and enjoy the discussion that ensues. John Dolan of Greenwich, CT has been leading book discussion groups like this one for several years and has graciously agreed to lead ours. We know the conversation will be lively and edifying.

From Publishers Weekly
Washington Post correspondent Reid (The United States of Europe) explores health-care systems around the world in an effort to understand why the U.S. remains the only first world nation to refuse its citizens universal health care.

Neither financial prudence nor concern for the commonweal explains the American position, according to Reid, whose findings divulge that the U.S. not only spends more money on health care than any other nation but also leaves 45 million residents uninsured, allowing about 22,000 to die from easily treatable diseases.

Seeking treatment for the flare up of an old shoulder injury, he visits doctors in the U.S., France, Germany, Japan and England—with a stint in an Ayurvedic clinic in India—in a quest for treatment that dovetails with his search for a cure for America’s healthcare crisis, a narrative device that sometimes feels contrived, but allows him valuable firsthand experience.

For all the scope of his research and his ability to mint neat rebuttals to the common American misconception that universal health care is socialized medicine, Reid neglects to address the elephant in the room: just how are we to sell these changes to the mighty providers and insurers? (Sept.)
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About the Author
T. R. Reid is a longtime correspondent for the Washington Post and former chief of its Tokyo and London bureaus as well as a commentator for National Public Radio. His books include The Chip and Confucius Lives Next Door.

This event sponsored by the Rye Free Reading Room.