Experiencing Politics: A Legislator's Stories of Government and Health Care (California/Milbank Series on Health and the Public) Review

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(More customer reviews)Former Massachusetts state legislator John McDonough takes readers from the theory to reality of practical politics in a surprisingly unegotistical fashion. He uses various theories about why and why political actors do what they do as they go about their business to introduce his own experiences.
The obligatory academics (the book is a valuable text book as well as a good read) are clear and easy to get through. The political stories are particularly informative and of great interest to people who want to know some of the 15,000 ways and by-ways that bills can travel to become law.
Experiencing Politics is instructive and should be required reading for zealots who'd rather make a point than make a difference. Of particular interest to all the victims of Narcissistic Advocates Personality Disorder (the Nader types, the zealots, the self righteous as only the Boston/Cambridge axis can breed) are McDonough's experiences and observations as an advocate for housing and as one who tried to ameliorate the impact of the loss of rent control.
Massachusetts political junkies and students of legislative process should love this book. McDonough doesn't describe his role as that of savior or saint, but as an interested student and practitioner of practical progressive politics who wants to be a player in his legislature.

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The Freedom Agenda: Why a Balanced Budget Amendment is Necessary to Restore Constitutional Government Review

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(More customer reviews)This book could not be more timely. Nor could it be more helpful in explaining how we got into this debt crisis and how we can get out of it. In The Freedom Agenda, Senator Lee makes the insightful, but too often overlooked argument that with every debt-limit increase, Congress authorizes the federal government to expand its size, scope, reach, and cost, always at the expense our our individual liberty. With each such expansion, the book explains, we as Americans become less free.
I would recommend this book to anyone because we, as a country, would be well-served to develop an understanding regarding (1) the limited purpose of the federal government, (2) the connection between the expansion of government (especially at the national level) and the erosion of individual liberty, and (3) the fact that the only way to break the cycle of government expansion is to restrict Congress's borrowing power. Senator Lee explains complex constitutional principles in a concise format that is easy to understand.
If you want to convince your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members that the federal government has gone too far and you need ammunition for your argument, you would do well to buy this book. It is a quick read, and very well worth the modest investment of time and money.

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Chronic Crisis: Critical Care for America's Collapsing Healthcare System Review

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(More customer reviews)The perfect book for what is on the agenda in the U.S. today. Selvoy M. Fillerup covers not only the health care system we have in the U.S. but compares it to the health care systems in several other industrialized countries. For example, Canada, Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, etc. A collection of policies that work - and ones that don't work - are proposed and explained not only in the context of effective health care but in the context of why they make good economic sense. An effective health care system is not only accessable it must also be solvent which is to say sustainable. Ironically, with universal health care individual health care costs in the U.S. go down.
What might an effective national health care policy look like?
1) Everyone has a choice between private or public health care coverage. Offering both private and public options leverages the strength of both systems. Private systems are good at innovating, reducing costs and expanding infrastructure. Public systems implement the social contract that everyone in a civilized society has access to basic health care services.
2) Everyone is enrolled in either the public or private system. This can be default or mandatory enrollment default being preferred as there are no penalties - legal actions - involved if someone fails to enroll thus the system is simpler.
3) Community rating for coverage pricing. Individual risks are not evaluated thus, again, simplifying the system and reducing one of the biggest coverage administration costs - risk analysis. The need for risk analysis of individuals is greatly reduced when coverage is guaranteed.
4) Guaranteed issue. Coverage under the uniform benefits package cannot be denied for prior history or any other reason. When you walk into a public or private health insurance office and ask for the basic coverage package you cannot be denied.
5) A uniform benefits package that includes catastrophic care. Public and private care compete on the uniform benefits package based on price, reputation, convenience and other factors but not on what the uniform benefits package actually covers.
It has been said that the U.S. has the best health care in the world... and the worst way of paying for it. Policy needs to set the guidelines or "playing field" in which the health care free market operates. With an effective policy - as outlined above - the free market can be an effective mechanism for health care delivery.

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The United States healthcare system leaks lives and dollars like a sieve. It neglects the needy and the poor. It is immoral. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It is, quite simply, broken. Dr. Selvoy Fillerup is an expert on international healthcare policy. As such, he has a uniquely informed perspective on why healthcare systems of other countries work, and why the US healthcare system does not. Chronic Crisis is straightforward, accessible, and direct to the point about one of the hottest political topics of our time. Explicitly nonpartisan, Dr. Fillerup offers a fresh look and reasonable solutions for this growing domestic crisis. Concerned Americans cannot afford to neglect this book!

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Introduction to Emergency Management, Second Edition (Butterworth-Heinemann Homeland Security) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Introduction to Emergency Management" is a straight-forward and insightful entre into the world of public emergency management. George Haddow and Jane Bullock are former senior FEMA officials that exerienced it first hand. And it shows.
I've added this book as one of my reference texts for the Organizational Continuity sessions I conduct. I also plan to use it in an workshop series I'm developing. It would be a great textbook for any course on Emergency Management AND it's also a good read for anyone interested in getting a taste of Emergency Management. I truly wish this book was in print when I took Emergency Management in grad school.
Highly recommended !!!

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Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars Review

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(More customer reviews)In this book, Pertschuk attempts to rewrite history with
himself as a hero. He also demonstrates how little he
has learned from that history. The two may be related.
Fortunately, the history is well documented; we are
not dependent on unreliable accounts of it. The key
fact is: the tobacco industry killed the McCain bill
as soon as it started to get tough on tobacco and
good for the public. 3 out of 4 members of the Congress that
killed the bill, had taken money from the tobacco industry.
So it wasn't too hard for the industry to kill a bill it
didn't like.
Pertschuk's rewrite would have us believe that victory
for public health was almost within our grasp. The
key fact is, the industry had a veto at all times,
which it didn't hesitate to use. In this battle
there was no danger at any time of public health
prevailing over industry profits. No historic
opportunity was missed; the opportunity never existed.
Not with this Congress.
On the contrary: if anything was narrowly missed,
it was a federal bailout of Big Tobacco. This
same Congress that killed a bill that was getting
too good for the public, also had the power to give
the tobacco industry a get-out-of-jail-free card:
legal immunity, special rights in court. That
was what the industry wanted, because it would
keep it safe and profitable.
This was no hypothetical danger: various forms of
immunity appeared in the McCain bill at different times.
Indeed it was without immunity in the bill that
the industry turned against the bill and killed it.
So what was missed, if anything, was a legal device
to keep Big Tobacco profitable and powerful into
the next century.
This history forms a pattern: the tobacco industry
has many times, in many states and localities, tried
to enter into closed-door, private negotiations.
The history of such closed-door deals also forms a
pattern: they turn out to protect industry profits
and do little to protect public health. Secret
negotiations with tobacco industry lawyers have
a long, sad, history: they don't tend to produce
results notably in the public interest.
It is sad that Pertschuk has not learned from
this history. It is even sadder that he attempts
to rewrite a recent instance of it. But perhaps
this is not a coincidence. Perhaps it would indeed
be difficult to write "I later realized that
I was mistaken in my approach, and that the
predictions that I differed with at the time,
were proven correct by the plain facts of history."
And perhaps we could apply Santayana here:
those who rewrite the past, surely will not learn
from it, and are then condemned to repeat it.
That would be saddest of all, because the tobacco
industry is still fighting hard to get
special rights in court. And is still a master
of closed-door negotiations. All it needs is
a couple of public health figures to endorse them.

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Protecting Your Health Privacy: A Citizen's Guide to Safeguarding the Security of Your Medical Information Review

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(More customer reviews)This book seamlessly describes how to protect one's own health privacy. It acted as the ideal eye-opener for an average citizen like myself, by showing and explaining my rights laid out in the constitution. Exceptionally clarifying and exquisitely well composed; BEYOND RECOMMENDATION!!!!!!

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