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Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health
Health care professionals, activists and scholars weigh in on how the U.S. can address the shortcomings of the "medical industrial complex" and extend affordable health care to all
“I’ve still got my health so what do I care?” goes a lyric in an old Cole Porter song. Most of us, in fact, assume we can’t live full lives, or take on life’s challenges, without also assuming that we’re basically healthy and will be for the foreseeable future. But these days, our health and well-being are sorted through an ever-expanding, profit-seeking financial complex that monitors, controls, and commodifies our very existence. Given that our access to competent, affordable health care grows more precarious each day, the arrival of Health Care Under the Knife could not be more timely. In this empowering book, noted health-care professionals, scholars, and activists―including editor Howard Waitzkin―impart their inside knowledge of the medical what’s wrong, how it got this way, and what we can do to heal it.
The book is comprised of individual essays addressing the “medical industrial complex,” the impact of privatization and cutbacks under neoliberalism, the nature of health-care work, and the intersections between health care and imperialism, both historically and at present. We see how the health of our bodies in “developed” countries is tied to the health of the bodies of the labor force in the Global South, and how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are linked strangely, inextricably, to our physical well-being. But this analysis would not be complete without the book’s final section, which delivers invaluable guidance for how to change this system. Recounting case studies and successful efforts for creating a more humane community, this book ultimately gives us hope that our health-care system can be rescued and made an integral part of a new and radically different society.
“I’ve still got my health so what do I care?” goes a lyric in an old Cole Porter song. Most of us, in fact, assume we can’t live full lives, or take on life’s challenges, without also assuming that we’re basically healthy and will be for the foreseeable future. But these days, our health and well-being are sorted through an ever-expanding, profit-seeking financial complex that monitors, controls, and commodifies our very existence. Given that our access to competent, affordable health care grows more precarious each day, the arrival of Health Care Under the Knife could not be more timely. In this empowering book, noted health-care professionals, scholars, and activists―including editor Howard Waitzkin―impart their inside knowledge of the medical what’s wrong, how it got this way, and what we can do to heal it.
The book is comprised of individual essays addressing the “medical industrial complex,” the impact of privatization and cutbacks under neoliberalism, the nature of health-care work, and the intersections between health care and imperialism, both historically and at present. We see how the health of our bodies in “developed” countries is tied to the health of the bodies of the labor force in the Global South, and how the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are linked strangely, inextricably, to our physical well-being. But this analysis would not be complete without the book’s final section, which delivers invaluable guidance for how to change this system. Recounting case studies and successful efforts for creating a more humane community, this book ultimately gives us hope that our health-care system can be rescued and made an integral part of a new and radically different society.
344 pages, Hardcover
Published March 15, 2018
10 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Howard Waitzkin
19 books7 followersHoward Waitzkin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of New Mexico and practices internal medicine part time in New Mexico and Illinois. For many years he has been active in struggles focusing on social medicine in the United States and Latin America.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 9, 2021
Veel stukken zijn wel vooral toegespitst op Amerikaanse gezondheidszorg, maar toch veel boeiende ideeën!
February 12, 2023
Compendiums like this obviously vary in quality very deeply essay to essay, but overall each writer seems relatively concise, focussed, and passionate on the chosen topic. It feels a bit chaotic overall, especially in jumping between very different levels of familiarity with the social sciences and the contexts. Some are very practical, material analysis of the conditions of doctors in the workforce, and others are very conceptual commentaries on medical systems and their implications. None are very well segued into one another, but each one is a compelling read for the most part.
May 1, 2020
Some of the essays here are brilliant; most are okay. The contributors help us to understand the history and structural transformation of the healthcare system in the U.S. from Marxist/humanist points of view. There are some great critiques of neoliberalism and capitalism, "pathological normalcy," and the ACA (so-called Obamacare), but I can't agree with the volume's statist approach. Much better, I think, would be to present proposals based in reorganizing society from below rather than above.
November 16, 2019
The discourse of an old leech: after a comfy sinecure job and all sort of pleasurable spending now the panic sets in Would I have enough? So why put aside when there are so many cruises to go on with the young assistant and PhD wannabe? Let "them" pay for my healthcare!
July 9, 2024
incredible!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews