56 pages • 1 hour read
T.R. ReidThe Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Monique A. “Nikki” White, a citizen of the United States, contracted a form of lupus and died at the age of 32 due to an inability to access healthcare. White did not qualify for Medicaid, due to having too much income, but she also couldn’t afford “the drugs and doctors she needed to stay alive” (1).
More than 20,000 non-elderly Americans die each year from treatable medical problems due to an inability to afford a doctor. Hundreds of thousands face bankruptcy each year “because of medical bills” (2). The healthcare reform bill that Congress passed in 2010, nicknamed “Obamacare,” would still leave around 23 million Americans without health insurance. Efforts to expand coverage are met with accusations that socialized medicine is exemplary of socialism. As a result, most other wealthy, industrialized nations have longer life expectancy, better recovery rates, and lower infant mortality rates than the US.
Contrary to what many Americans believe, most industrialized nations have health care without living in a socialist society. Reid set out on a global quest to find out what other countries can teach Americans about health care—that is, if Americans are sincere about granting medical treatment to everyone, regardless of income status.
Chapter 1 Summary: “A Quest for Two Cures”
In India, Reid visited Mrs. Rama, a diagnostician at India’s renowned Arya Vaidya Chikitsalayam—“the Mayo Clinic of traditional Indian medicine” located in Tamil Nadu (5). Indian medical insurance covers Mrs. Rama’s treatments.
Reid visited Mrs. Rama in the hope of finding relief for his bad right shoulder, which he had injured during his years in the Navy. In 1972, a naval surgeon used a stainless-steel screw to fix the joint in place; but, over time, the joint loosened, causing pain in the shoulder and difficulty with movement. Before going to India, Reid started his quest for shoulder-relief back home. He visited the highly-regarded orthopedist Dr. Donald Ferlic who recommended “a total shoulder arthroplasty” (7). Dr. Ferlic planned to cut off Reid’s shoulder joint with a surgical saw. He would then replace it with an arthroplastic joint made of silicon and titanium. Finally, Dr. Ferlic would hammer the new joint into Reid’s upper arm and cement it to his clavicle. Though Dr. Ferlic was confident about the efficacy of this treatment, the patient was ambivalent.
Firstly, total shoulder arthroplasty would cost five figures, though the exact price was a mystery. Also, Dr. Ferlic told Reid that the surgery might not increase mobility in his shoulder. Then, there were the additional risks of disease, paralysis, and even death. This news prompted Reid to search for other cures in other countries.
In addition to offering inadequate coverage, the United States also performs below other wealthy nations “in matters of cost, quality, and choice” (8). Most Americans recognize these problems, even though the US leads the world in health care spending—averaging $7,400 per person. This exorbitant spending is highly unusual for a country in which citizens go to the doctor so infrequently. In Japan, on the other hand, people go to the doctor around 14 times per year, though the country only spends $3,400 per person on health care each year.
Worse, Americans are less satisfied with their health care than those in industrialized nations, despite paying so much for it. Reid wrote The Healing of America to help prove that Americans could learn how to make health care more efficient by borrowing foreign ideas. He also set out to disprove the gimmicky term “socialized medicine.” After all, even in countries in which government plays a significant role in health care, doctors’ offices still operate as private enterprises. Japan has even more for-profit hospitals than the US.
Furthermore, despite the furor over “socialized medicine,” the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Medicare are examples of government-run health care systems currently in operation. Both consistently rate high in patient satisfaction and remain protected by both Democrats and Republicans.
Reid argues that the true aversion to borrowing from foreign models is due to their being foreign. This disrupts the belief in American exceptionalism—the notion that that the US is too strong, wealthy, and productive ever to need help from elsewhere. This view, however, is rather ironic, considering the popularity of other foreign ideas, ranging from yoga, cuisine, and TV programming. However, comparative policy analysis—that is, seeing how foreign ideas can apply in one’s own country—is not new in the US. President Dwight D. Eisenhower applied it in 1953 when he used the German Autobahn as the inspiration for revamping the nation’s transit infrastructure by creating the interstate highway system. If not for this change, Americans may have never known other basic aspects of American life: motels, road trips, suburbs, and recreational vehicles.
Prologue-Chapter 1 Analysis
Reid sets the tone for the rest of the book by offering an anecdote—an example of a patient whose life may have been saved if she lived in a country that offered affordable health care. This is a different tactic from the one that has been used by politicians—a problem that Reid raises at the end of the book. By personalizing the issue of health care reform and explaining, in concrete ways, what can happen when people don’t have access to the care that they need, Reid makes the subject of health care reform relatable and nonabstract. On the other hand, politicians in recent history have made the issue about the economy or the national deficit, issues that are either too abstract and mutable or too far removed from people’s actual lives to make an emotional impact.
Reid then segues from the story of Monique White to his own. The significant differences lie in what we know about Reid versus what we don’t know about White. Reid provides some details about her background but is unclear about White’s race and marital status—all of which we know about Reid. The author is an educated, white, upper-class male whose career affords him privileges—particularly, travel—that many other people do not enjoy. White was also educated and came from a middle-class background, though Reid is never clear about her race. One can infer that White, too, was a white woman due to the population of her hometown, Bristol, being over 95% white. Reid uses the mobility and economic wherewithal that White didn’t have to do a comparative analysis.
In the first three sections of the book, Reid explains the purpose of the book and why this text matters. He also immediately refutes the misguided notions that many Americans have regarding their ability to learn about health care from other countries. He uses the important example of the interstate highway system, which was inspired by the German Autobahn, to remind Americans that we are not so exceptional that we can’t get good infrastructural ideas from other countries.
