We cannot afford to spend as much money as we spend today on health care. Health care costs are destroying state and federal budgets and health care costs are driving American families into financial collapse. We spend twice as much money on care as the rest of the world's industrialized nations. Most of those countries get better care, faster care and more care than we do-and they all spend a lot less money in the process. Health care saves lives. That is wonderful. Health care costs can impair the financial functioning for the lives that are saved. That is clearly not wonderful. It isn't right for care costs and expenses to destroy the lives that are saved by care. This book explains how to resolve those issues. Uwe Reinhardt, Joseph Antos, Ron Pollack and Dr Dean Ornish offer their thoughts on the book. "Don't Let Health Care Bankrupt America lays out a practical agenda of reforms needed to maintain and improve the quality of health care in this country without imposing ruinous costs on ourselves and our children. The message is clear: our health system must be re-engineered to produce health care that is appropriate, high value, and efficient. George Halvorson argues that we need to reform the business of health and bring the patient to the front of the line when deciding how health care should be delivered. Real patient-centered care, smarter use of electronic medical records, better care coordination, price transparency combined with price relevancy, bundled payment in place of piece-rate pricing, accountability and personal responsibility, and the adoption of smarter competition-based approaches to Medicare and Medicaid are on the agenda for system-wide improvement. George Halvorson speaks with three decades of experience in managing health systems, and he practices what he preaches. We would do well to heed that advice." -Joseph Antos, Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. "George C. Halvorson's Don't Let Health Care Bankrupt America is written by one of America's most distinguished health care executives, one who spent the bulk of his professional career as an executive of large health systems. The value of the book is that it is based on intimate, hands-on knowledge of how U.S. health care actually works. I personally have long recommended the model Halvorson has managed for many years - the Kaiser Permanent model - to policy makers in other countries. All Americans should read this insightful book, written with a blend of passion for a better health system and the practical experience to give Halvorson's recommendations credibility. The leaders of American health care, in particular, should read it, as a reminder that, for all of the great value they undoubtedly do bestow on patients, their often wasteful practices are triggering intolerably high social opportunity costs." -Uwe Reinhardt, James Madison Professor of Political Economy, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University "George Halvorson is not only a leading pioneer in organizing patient-centered health care. He also, through this book, presents us with an effective road map so America can achieve high-quality, good-value health care. The book combines the best in theory and practicality so we can all contribute to continual improvements for our nation's health and health care." -Ron Pollack, executive director, Families USA (the national organization for health care consumers). "After more than 10 years as CEO of the largest managed care organization on the planet, George Halvorson shares his deep wisdom and experience in showing that the best way to lower health care costs is by creating better health. Eminently practical, extraordinarily visionary, deeply inspiring, and highly recommended." -Dr Dean Ornish, founder and president, Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Fr

Health care reform is within our reach. According to George Halvorson, CEO of the nation's largest private health care plan, only by improving the intent, quality, and reach of services will we achieve a health system that is economically feasible into the future.

This year, Americans will spend 2.5 trillion for health services that are poorly coordinated, inconsistent, and most typically focused on the belated care of chronic conditions. What we have to show for that expenditure is a nation that continues to become more obese, less healthy, and more depressed.

In Health Care Will Not Reform Itself, Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson proves beyond a doubt that the tragically inconsistent care that currently defines the state of U.S. health services is irresponsible, irrational, but more importantly, fixable. With detail that might shock you, he shows why the nonsystem we now use is failing. Then, applying the same sensible leadership that makes Kaiser the most progressive health care organization in the world, he answers President Obama s mandate for reform with a profound incentive-based, system-supported, goal-focused, care-improvement plan.

Halvorson draws from respected studies, including his own, and the examples of successful systems across the world to show that while good health care is expensive, it is nowhere near as costly as bad health care. To immediately curb care costs and bring us in line with President Obama's projected parameters, he recommends that we:

• Take a preventive approach to the chronic conditions that account for the lion s share of medical costs
• Coordinate patient care through a full commitment to information technology
• Increase the pool of contributors by mandating universal insurance
• Rearrange priorities by making health maintenance profitable
• Convene a national committee to "figure out the right thing" and "make it easy to do"

While this book offers sage advice to policy makers, it is also written to educate the 260 million stakeholders and invite their participation in the debate that is now shaping. What makes this plan so easy to understand and so compelling is that it never strays from a profound truth: that the best health system is one that actually focuses on good health for everyone.

All royalties from the sale of this book go to Oakland Community Voices: Healthcare for the Underserved