Book Review - Open Wide And Say Moo

As the poster boy for the average American I try very hard to hang out with and otherwise associate myself with smart people. Take a look at my blog roll and you'll find a lot of very smart folks. One of those who go into the Very Smart list is DrRich at The Covert rationing Blog. If you haven't perused his writings I highly encourage you to spend some time at his place. Like I said, agree with him or not, the man is positively bulging with smartitude and medical badassery. Considering his education, profession and background he's easily in the genius category. Yes, I freely admit that I am a DrRich fanboy.

Over the last bit (in his munificent free time) DrRich has been writing a book on health care. It's about how we got into the mess we're in, who the major players are, what they did to basically screw up the system and how we can actually fix it short of rationing or total collapse. And it's a doozy. He explains his rational for writing a book that is surely not making him any friends in the medical health establishment or among politicians of either party.

The book is available in two places, on his site here (find the header labeled Open Wide and say Moo, click on it and select a chapter) and as an e-book available for the Kindle here. Since I'm a Luddite who doesn't have an e-reader and DrRich is a generous and all around nice guy he sent me a download of the book for my perusal. It's $5.99 on Kindle and worth every cent. Since he didn't take my money and it's available for free on his site Lu and I will be making a donation to the American Heart Association in his name.

It's not a long read but it is chock full of information, much of which I did not know. The best part is it is most emphatically not written as a dry as dust missive full of medico jargon and 5 dollar words. DrRich has a wit that is sharp as a Ginsu knife and dry as a fine Martini. Reading it is a little like passing a spectacular car wreck that you know was caused by massive stupidity. You hate to giggle at the catastrophe but you just can't help yourself. I mean, the title alone bespeaks the wonders hidden inside.

And DrRich takes no prisoners here. He calls out those he views as responsible for soaring costs and plunging rhetoric. No one is safe as the good doc takes a scalpel to modern health care, administration of such and how and why the insurance companies and politicians are playing poker with our dollars and our lives. Eye opening is a vast understatement. But DrRich is among the very few critics of our current health care debacle who has common sense answers, proposals and solutions. You may agree or disagree with him but I at least can find no fault with his logic or reasoning.

I gave the book a quick first read and am now going back over it more slowly. There is a huge amount of information here; the section on fixing the problem alone deserves devoted study. I'll be re-reading this one many times, especially with the election coming and the answers we must have in the new year if we are to preserve American medical care as the best in the world.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I consider it a must read for anyone who is politically aware and needs unbiased information with which to make the monumental decisions facing us all.

And if you get a giggle along the way at the driver who managed to run his car up the telephone pole guy wire you are hereby given a pass. Consider it an additional benefit for doing the necessary research.

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