Book Review Mired in the Health Care Morass

Davis, Neil. Mired in the Health Care Morass: An Alaskan Takes on America's Dysfunctional Medical System for his Uninsured Daughter. Ester Republic Press, 2008. (Book Review)

In 1994 Patricia Davis faced an increasingly common dilemma. Symptoms indicated that she should seek medical care immediately. Having just started a new job, with health insurance that didn't kick in for six more months, she was trying to put off seeing a doctor until then. Three months into this job the need to seek medical attention had become inescapable. Her diagnosis was lung cancer. She did not have insurance yet and her cancer was now a “pre-existing condition”. Now she was faced with tens of thousands of dollars in potential medical bills that she could not afford to pay. Enter her father, Neil Davis, who offered to pay her bills to the best of his ability.

It didn't take Davis long to notice huge discrepancies in the billing. Thus began his education on medical billing practices in the United States. He discovered that uninsured patients are billed fees that are astronomically higher than the fees the paid by insurance companies on behalf of insured patients and by Medicaid on behalf of Medicaid recipients. This is to cover expenses that have not been paid either by indigent patients or by ordinary middle class patients who cannot cover their uninsured expenses. The many charts and statistics he uses to illustrate his findings can be hard to understand at times, but believe it or not they accurately illustrate his point that the complexity of the American system creates expense. He skewers some fondly held myths about the U.S. Health care system and shines light on the health care systems in other nations. He also gives his prescription for how the U.S. Health care system can be changed.

Neil Davis has experiences in being a consumer of health care that most of us never hope to have, but which will become increasingly commonplace as the health care becomes increasingly broken. His answers to the health care crises (universal, uniform payments, distributed to patients regardless of ability to pay, regulation of drug companies) are well thought out and do not come from a place of a particular political ideology but instead from his own experiences and research. His book is well researched and a convincing call to radically overhaul the American health care system from someone who has experienced the worst that the American health care system has to offer.