An American Sickness

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• Author : Elisabeth Rosenthal
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 53,8 Mb
• Release Date : 2017-04-11
• Total pages : 432
• ISBN : 9780698407183
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A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

• Author : Elisabeth Rosenthal
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 32,7 Mb
• Release Date : 2018-03-13
• Total pages : 434
• ISBN : 9780143110859
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Download An American Sickness in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.

• Author : Elisabeth Rosenthal
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 22,6 Mb
• Release Date : 2017
• Total pages : 418
• ISBN : 9781594206757
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Breaking down the monolithic business into its individual industries ... the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, drug manufacturers ... that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal tells the story of the history of American medicine as never before. The situation is far worse than we think, and it has become like that much more recently than we realize. Hospitals, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Americans are dying from routine medical conditions when affordable and straightforward solutions exist. Dr. Rosenthal explains for the first time how various social and financial incentives have encouraged a disastrous and immoral system to spring uporganicallyin a shockingly short span of time. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back.

• Author : Marty Makary
• Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
• File Size : 49,5 Mb
• Release Date : 2019-09-10
• Total pages : 288
• ISBN : 9781635574128
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Download The Price We Pay in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

New York Times bestseller Business Book of the Year--Association of Business Journalists From the New York Times bestselling author comes an eye-opening, urgent look at America's broken health care system--and the people who are saving it--now with a new Afterword by the author. "A must-read for every American." --Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief, FORBES One in five Americans now has medical debt in collections and rising health care costs today threaten every small business in America. Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of the business of medicine and its elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable. The Price We Pay offers a road map for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well--a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.

• Author : Marty Makary
• Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
• File Size : 35,6 Mb
• Release Date : 2012-09-18
• Total pages : 256
• ISBN : 9781608198399
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Download Unaccountable in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

New York Times Bestseller “Every once in a while a book comes along that rocks the foundations of an established order that's seriously in need of being shaken. The modern American hospital is that establishment and Unaccountable is that book.”-Shannon Brownlee, author of Overtreated Dr. Marty Makary is co-developer of the life-saving checklist outlined in Atul Gawande's bestselling The Checklist Manifesto. As a busy surgeon who has worked in many of the best hospitals in the nation, he can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he's also been a witness to a medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting. Over the last ten years, neither error rates nor costs have come down, despite scientific progress and efforts to curb expenses. Why? To patients, the healthcare system is a black box. Doctors and hospitals are unaccountable, and the lack of transparency leaves both bad doctors and systemic flaws unchecked. Patients need to know more of what healthcare workers know, so they can make informed choices. Accountability in healthcare would expose dangerous doctors, reward good performance, and force positive change nationally, using the power of the free market. Unaccountable is a powerful, no-nonsense, non-partisan diagnosis for healing our hospitals and reforming our broken healthcare system.

• Author : Thom Hartmann
• Publisher : Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• File Size : 30,5 Mb
• Release Date : 2021-09-07
• Total pages : 192
• ISBN : 9781523091652
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Download The Hidden History of American Healthcare in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality. "For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann. Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan's single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States. Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare. There is a simple solution: Medicare for all. Hartmann outlines the extraordinary benefits this system would provide the American people and economy and the steps we need to take to make it a reality. It's time for America to join every industrialized country in the world and make health a right, not a privilege.

• Author : Elinor Cleghorn
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 10,9 Mb
• Release Date : 2021-06-08
• Total pages : 400
• ISBN : 9780593182963
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Download Unwell Women in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

A trailblazing, conversation-starting history of women’s health—from the earliest medical ideas about women’s illnesses to hormones and autoimmune diseases—brought together in a fascinating sweeping narrative. Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman ten years ago. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect. The result is an authoritative and groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between women and medical practice, from the "wandering womb" of Ancient Greece to the rise of witch trials across Europe, and from the dawn of hysteria as a catchall for difficult-to-diagnose disorders to the first forays into autoimmunity and the shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation, menopause, and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies and case histories of women who have suffered, challenged, and rewritten medical orthodoxy—and the men who controlled their fate—this is a revolutionary examination of the relationship between women, illness, and medicine. With these case histories, Elinor pays homage to the women who suffered so strides could be made, and shows how being unwell has become normalized in society and culture, where women have long been distrusted as reliable narrators of their own bodies and pain. But the time for real change is long overdue: answers reside in the body, in the testimonies of unwell women—and their lives depend on medicine learning to listen.

• Author : Tania M. Jenkins
• Publisher : Columbia University Press
• File Size : 19,6 Mb
• Release Date : 2020-07-21
• Total pages : 329
• ISBN : 9780231548298
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Download Doctors' Orders in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

The United States does not have enough doctors. Every year since the 1950s, internationally trained and osteopathic medical graduates have been needed to fill residency positions because there are too few American-trained MDs. However, these international and osteopathic graduates have to significantly outperform their American MD counterparts to have the same likelihood of getting a residency position. And when they do, they often end up in lower-prestige training programs, while American-trained MDs tend to occupy elite training positions. Some programs are even fully segregated, accepting exclusively U.S. medical graduates or non-U.S. medical graduates, depending on the program’s prestige. How do international and osteopathic medical graduates end up so marginalized, and what allows U.S.-trained MDs to remain elite? Doctors’ Orders offers a groundbreaking examination of the construction and consequences of status distinctions between physicians before, during, and after residency training. Tania M. Jenkins spent years observing and interviewing American, international, and osteopathic medical residents in two hospitals to reveal the unspoken mechanisms that are taken for granted and that lead to hierarchies among supposed equals. She finds that the United States does not need formal policies to prioritize American-trained MDs. By relying on a system of informal beliefs and practices that equate status with merit and eclipse structural disadvantages, the profession convinces international and osteopathic graduates to participate in a system that subordinates them to American-trained MDs. Offering a rare ethnographic look at the inner workings of an elite profession, Doctors’ Orders sheds new light on the formation of informal status hierarchies and their significance for both doctors and patients.

• Author : Meghan O'Rourke
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 41,7 Mb
• Release Date : 2022-03-01
• Total pages : 337
• ISBN : 9780698190764
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Download The Invisible Kingdom in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue “Remarkable.” –Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review "At once a rigorous work of scholarship and a radical act of empathy.”—Esquire "A ray of light into those isolated cocoons of darkness that, at one time or another, may afflict us all.” —The Wall Street Journal "Essential."—The Boston Globe A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases A silent epidemic of chronic illnesses afflicts tens of millions of Americans: these are diseases that are poorly understood, frequently marginalized, and can go undiagnosed and unrecognized altogether. Renowned writer Meghan O’Rourke delivers a revelatory investigation into this elusive category of “invisible” illness that encompasses autoimmune diseases, post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and now long COVID, synthesizing the personal and the universal to help all of us through this new frontier. Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, O’Rourke traces the history of Western definitions of illness, and reveals how inherited ideas of cause, diagnosis, and treatment have led us to ignore a host of hard-to-understand medical conditions, ones that resist easy description or simple cures. And as America faces this health crisis of extraordinary proportions, the populations most likely to be neglected by our institutions include women, the working class, and people of color. Blending lyricism and erudition, candor and empathy, O’Rourke brings together her deep and disparate talents and roles as critic, journalist, poet, teacher, and patient, synthesizing the personal and universal into one monumental project arguing for a seismic shift in our approach to disease. The Invisible Kingdom offers hope for the sick, solace and insight for their loved ones, and a radical new understanding of our bodies and our health.

• Author : T. R. Reid
• Publisher : Penguin
• File Size : 51,9 Mb
• Release Date : 2010-08-31
• Total pages : 306
• ISBN : 9780143118213
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Download The Healing of America in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

A New York Times Bestseller, with an updated explanation of the 2010 Health Reform Bill "Important and powerful . . . a rich tour of health care around the world." —Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times Bringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid visits industrialized democracies around the world--France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and beyond--to provide a revelatory tour of successful, affordable universal health care systems. Now updated with new statistics and a plain-English explanation of the 2010 health care reform bill, The Healing of America is required reading for all those hoping to understand the state of health care in our country, and around the world. T. R. Reid's latest book, A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System, is also available from Penguin Press.

• Author : Sarah Ramey
• Publisher : Anchor
• File Size : 37,7 Mb
• Release Date : 2021-05-11
• Total pages : 434
• ISBN : 9780307741943
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Download The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey’s years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head—but wasn’t. In her harrowing, darkly funny, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological. The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission: to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions—autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain, and many more. Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness becomes a page-turning medical mystery that reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connections to the state of our microbiomes. Her book will open eyes, change lives, and, ultimately, change medicine. The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.

• Author : Beatrix Hoffman
• Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
• File Size : 52,8 Mb
• Release Date : 2003-06-19
• Total pages : 280
• ISBN : 9780807860724
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Download The Wages of Sickness in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

The Clinton administration's failed health care reform was not the first attempt to establish government-sponsored medical coverage in the United States. From 1915 to 1920, Progressive reformers led a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful crusade for compulsory health insurance in New York State. Beatrix Hoffman argues that this first health insurance campaign was a crucial moment in the creation of the American welfare state and health care system. Its defeat, she says, gave rise to an uneven and inegalitarian system of medical coverage and helped shape the limits of American social policy for the rest of the century. Hoffman examines each of the major combatants in the battle over compulsory health insurance. While physicians, employers, the insurance industry, and conservative politicians forged a uniquely powerful coalition in opposition to health insurance proposals, she shows, reformers' potential allies within women's organizations and the labor movement were bitterly divided. Against the backdrop of World War I and the Red Scare, opponents of reform denounced government-sponsored health insurance as "un-American" and, in the process, helped fashion a political culture that resists proposals for universal health care and a comprehensive welfare state even today.

• Author : Niran Al-Agba,Rebekah Bernard
• Publisher : Universal-Publishers
• File Size : 53,8 Mb
• Release Date : 2020-11-01
• Total pages : 254
• ISBN : 9781627343169
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Download Patients at Risk in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare exposes a vast conspiracy of political maneuvering and corporate greed that has led to the replacement of qualified medical professionals by lesser trained practitioners. As corporations seek to save money and government agencies aim to increase constituent access, minimum qualifications for the guardians of our nation’s healthcare continue to decline—with deadly consequences. This is a story that has not yet been told, and one that has dangerous repercussions for all Americans. With the rate of nurse practitioner and physician assistant graduates exceeding that of physician graduates, if you are not already being treated by a non-physician, chances are, you soon will be. While advocates for these professions insist that research shows that they can provide the same care as physicians, patients do not know the whole truth: that there are no credible scientific studies to support the safety and efficacy of non-physicians practicing without physician supervision. Written by two physicians who have witnessed the decline of medical expertise over the last twenty years, this data-driven book interweaves heart-rending true patient stories with hard data, showing how patients have been sacrificed for profit by the substitution of non-physician practitioners. Adding a dimension neglected by modern healthcare critiques such as An American Sickness, this book provides a roadmap for patients to protect themselves from medical harm. WORDS OF PRAISE and REVIEWS Al-Agba and Bernard tell a frightening story that insiders know all too well. As mega corporations push for efficiency and tout consumer focused retail services, American healthcare is being dumbed down to the point of no return. It's a story that many media outlets are missing and one that puts you and your family's health at real risk. --John Irvine, Deductible Media Laced with actual patient cases, the book’s data and patterns of large corporations replacing physicians with non-physician practitioners, despite the vast difference in training is enlightening and astounding. The authors' extensively researched book methodically lays out the problems of our changing medical care landscape and solutions to ensure quality care. --Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD A masterful job of bringing to light a rapidly growing issue of what should be great concern to all of us: the proliferation of non-physician practitioners that work predominantly inside algorithms rather than applying years of training, clinical knowledge, and experience. Instead of a patient-first mentality, we are increasingly met with the sad statement of Profits Over Patients, echoed by hospitals and health insurance companies. --John M. Chamberlain, MHA, LFACHE, Board Chairman, Citizen Health A must read for patients attempting to navigate today’s healthcare marketplace. --Brian Wilhelmi MD, JD, FASA

• Author : Margaret Peacock,Erik L. Peterson
• Publisher : Beacon Press
• File Size : 17,7 Mb
• Release Date : 2022-03-08
• Total pages : 298
• ISBN : 9780807040294
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Download A Deeper Sickness in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

A harrowing chronicle by two leading historians, capturing in real time the events of a year marked by multiple devastations. When we look back at the year 2020, how can we describe what really happened? In A Deeper Sickness, award-winning historians Margaret Peacock and Erik Peterson set out to preserve what they call the “focused confusion,” and to probe deeper into what they consider the Four Pandemics that converged around the 12 astonishing months of 2020: • Disease • Disinformation • Poverty • Violence Drs. Peacock and Peterson use their interdisciplinary expertise to extend their analysis beyond the viral science, and instead into the social, political, and historical dimensions of this crisis. They consulted with dozens of experts and witnesses from a wide range of fields—from leading epidemiologists and health care workers to leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, district attorneys, political scientists, philosophers, and more. Their journey revealed a sick country that believed it was well, a violent nation that believed it was peaceful; one that mistook poverty for prosperity and accountability for rebellion. Organized into the journal-entries along with dozens of archival images, A Deeper Sickness will help readers sift through the chaos and misinformation that characterized those frantic days. It is both an unflinching indictment of a nation that is still reeling and a testament to the power of human resilience and collective memory. Readers can share their story and become a contributing author by visiting an interactive digital museum, where the authors have preserved dozens of more stories and interviews. Visit Margaret Peacock and Erik L. Peterson’s digital museum at adhc.lib.ua.edu/pandemicbook/.

• Author : Nancy Tomes
• Publisher : UNC Press Books
• File Size : 49,6 Mb
• Release Date : 2016-01-06
• Total pages : 560
• ISBN : 9781469622781
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Download Remaking the American Patient in PDF, Epub, and Kindle

In a work that spans the twentieth century, Nancy Tomes questions the popular--and largely unexamined--idea that in order to get good health care, people must learn to shop for it. Remaking the American Patient explores the consequences of the consumer economy and American medicine having come of age at exactly the same time. Tracing the robust development of advertising, marketing, and public relations within the medical profession and the vast realm we now think of as "health care," Tomes considers what it means to be a "good" patient. As she shows, this history of the coevolution of medicine and consumer culture tells us much about our current predicament over health care in the United States. Understanding where the shopping model came from, why it was so long resisted in medicine, and why it finally triumphed in the late twentieth century helps explain why, despite striking changes that seem to empower patients, so many Americans remain unhappy and confused about their status as patients today.