Synopsis
Examines the problem of soaring medical costs, discusses the future role of the physician, hospital, and new drugs, and looks at how medical care will be funded
Review
Every doctor, policy maker, and concerned citizen should listen as Fuchs explains the keys to getting physicians to make cost-effective decisions, the only promising way to control health-care costs. They should listen again as he identifies the drastic shifts over 40 years in how Americans pay for care, and then explains why that shift to bigger payers with much more bargaining power has failed to restrain costs. Finally, they should ponder the reform plan he presents here, developed with Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, after distilling wisdom from dozens of experts in a multi-year project. If great clarity, practical insights, and relevant data on health care are what you want, Vic Fuchs' Who Shall Live? is for you. --Richard Zeckhauser, Frank P Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Kennedy School, Harvard University
Who Shall Live? is deservedly a classic book. I assign it as the only reading for the first class of the year in a health policy survey course because, except for the magnitude of the numbers, its analysis, accessibility, and lucidity of exposition are as fresh as four decades ago. And for the great many who have read the book at least once, there is a spiffy new introduction that gives Fuchs' reflections on the events of the intervening years, including the health reform legislation of 2010. --Professor Joseph P Newhouse, Harvard School of Public Health and founding and current editor, Journal of Health Economics
Victor Fuchs is the most perspicacious, prolific, influential and durable of the small cadre of economists who founded the field of health economics. Who Shall Live? created something of a sensation when it was first published. Its messages resonate today, and it behooves anyone seriously interested in health and health care to devour its wisdom. Prof Fuchs continues to offer new ideas, filled with insight, that demand attention from America's health care policy makers. His analysis of health reform and his comprehensive cure should be required reading for every state and federal legislator, and for every citizen who cares about the future of our country. --Kenneth E Warner, Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor of Public Health, University of Michigan
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