Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer Book

This book was written before the passage of the Affordable Care Act and was five years old as I read it, but it remains relevant and damning, showing just how difficult reform is. I liked the book because it covered a lot of ground and explained the common bugaboos of treatment--doctors' propensity for prescribing too much care, pharmaceutical companies' hegemony over drug testing, patients' inflated expectations of medicine--with a good journalist's strong style that combines anecdote with statistics. True, Brownless does not delve into details, which would have included explaining the weaknesses of current electronic health records, explaining that pharma companies are having trouble finding new drugs, and exploring patient-centered medicine. But what she covers is explained in a depth that is sufficient for entering the debate. The failures of several earlier attempts to reform health care should make us cautious about celebrating the current wave of innovation, lovely as its goals are.