America's Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780812986686)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - "A tour de force . . . a comprehensive and suitably furious guide to the political landscape of American healthcare . . . persuasive, shocking."--The New York Times

America's Bitter Pill is Steven Brill's acclaimed book on how the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was written, how it is being implemented, and, most important, how it is changing--and failing to change--the rampant abuses in the healthcare industry. It's a fly-on-the-wall account of the titanic fight to pass a 961-page law aimed at fixing America's largest, most dysfunctional industry. It's a penetrating chronicle of how the profiteering that Brill first identified in his trailblazing Time magazine cover story continues, despite Obamacare. And it is the first complete, inside account of how President Obama persevered to push through the law, but then failed to deal with the staff incompetence and turf wars that crippled its implementation.

But by chance America's Bitter Pill ends up being much more--because as Brill was completing this book, he had to undergo urgent open-heart surgery. Thus, this also becomes the story of how one patient who thinks he knows everything about healthcare "policy" rethinks it from a hospital gurney--and combines that insight with his brilliant reporting. The result: a surprising new vision of how we can fix American healthcare so that it stops draining the bank accounts of our families and our businesses, and the federal treasury.

Praise for America's Bitter Pill

"An energetic, picaresque, narrative explanation of much of what has happened in the last seven years of health policy . . . Brill] has pulled off something extraordinary."--The New York Times Book Review

"A thunderous indictment of what Brill refers to as the 'toxicity of our profiteer-dominated healthcare system.' "--Los Angeles Times

"A sweeping and spirited new book that] chronicles the surprisingly juicy tale of reform."--The Daily Beast

"One of the most important books of our time."--Walter Isaacson

"Superb . . . Brill has achieved the seemingly impossible--written an exciting book about the American health system."--The New York Review of Books

Author: Steven Brill
ISBN-10: 0812986687
ISBN-13: 9780812986686
Publisher: Random House Trade
Language: English
Published: 08/18/2015
Pages: 528
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.10w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 09/13/2015 pg. 32