User's guide to refocus and reform American health care

Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A User's Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care, is the latest installment from acclaimed author and health care industry power George C. Halvorson. In this 150-page, must-read book, Halvorson lifts the veil on what ails American health care. He tackles cost, quality and the failures of the system. Nothing is off limits.

This painfully clear book exposes the medical mystery of why health care costs more in America than anywhere in the world. Halvorson illustrates that care in this country costs more by the piece, package and patient by a wide margin. Simply stated, health care makes too much money to change. What's needed to improve the high-priced, fragmented and disorganized American care delivery system? Health Care Will Not Reform Itself offers undisputed solutions.

Halvorson convincingly argues that care and cost can be improved by a series of comprehensive actions including better coordinated care for patients with one or more chronic diseases who represent more than 75 percent of all health care costs along with the implementation of technology to connect physicians and caregivers with real time health information. These steps combined, not in isolation, would result in half as many asthma crisis, kidney failures and people dying of heart disease.

Health Care Will Not Reform Itself is a powerful book that is clear, candid and blunt. You'll never look at health care in America the same way after reading it.

Health Care Will Not Reform Itself is available online at www.amazon.com, and can be found in most major bookstores. Halvorson salutes the work of community clinics by contributing all royalties from the sale of the book to two Oakland, Calif.-based clinics -- La Clinica de la Raza and Asian Health Services. These organizations were selected because they provide health care for the underserved, many of whom would fall through the cracks of the health care system without these valued programs.