HMO Story Is Thorough but Dated

There aren’t many people who understand the flaws of HMO medicine better than Jamie Court, a tireless consumer activist who is co-founder of Consumers for Quality Care, a health-care watchdog organization that operates under the umbrella of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica.

And his book--co-written with Francis Smith, president of Future Strategies, a public-policy consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.--provides one of the most descriptive records of the horrors of HMO medicine during the 1990s, with numerous stories of individuals who were denied care or had to fight their HMOs for coverage of medical services. Court and Smith make a compelling case for the absurdity of a health-care system based on the concept of minimizing care to increase profits and please shareholders. They reveal how and why most HMOs have broken their early promises to control costs and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.

The problem with “Making a Killing” is that it has a slightly outdated feel. Most of the stories of HMO abuses are old news and date to the mid-1990s. It might have been more helpful to examine the state of HMOs in more recent years and to expand the discussion on why reform efforts have failed. Although the section on HMO reform is brief, the authors remind readers that all is not lost. This year’s presidential elections are crucial to health-care financing’s fate in the next decade.

Also relegated to the last pages of the book is a useful guide on how consumers can protect themselves from HMO abuses.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR CHILD GETS SICK

By Gloria Mayer, RN,

and Ann Kuklierus, RN

Institute for Healthcare Advancement, 181 pages, $14.95.

*

Walk into any bookstore and you’ll find a broad selection of health-advice books for parents of young children.

But try to find something helpful if you’re one of the 40 million Americans who struggle to read.

Helping these parents cope with questions about their children’s health is the goal of a new book from the Whittier-based Institute for Healthcare Advancement, a nonprofit organization that aims to advance health-care delivery through education and innovative practices. The book is written for a third- to fifth-grade reading level and is available in English and Spanish.

“What to Do When Your Child Gets Sick” covers such topics as when to call a doctor, basic illnesses, and how to help a child who wets the bed and deal with injuries.

Printed in large type, the text is wrapped around simple illustrations that help explain concepts.

The book is the first in a series of low-literacy self-help health-care books. Research has shown that having a good health-care guide at home can reduce doctor’s office and emergency room visits by 20%.

Individual copies of the book are available (by phone at [800] 434-4633 and on the Internet at https://www.iha4health.org). But officials at the Institute for Healthcare Advancement are encouraging businesses to buy the book in bulk for employees or to donate to nonprofit agencies serving the poor.