Consumer protection advocate Ralph Nader praised Solved! Curing Your Medical Insurance Problems: "Who hasn't been bewildered and outraged by lengthy, inscrutable medical bills and the tricky ways of the health insurers? ....Learn what to watch out for in this volume by authors who know the inside ways of sellers who try to take you to the cleaners." Some say, "You get what you pay for." If only this were true! Too often, consumers find themselves paying much more than they expected, getting much less than they bargained for. Medical care is no exception. In their book, the authors show readers how to spot over-charges by providers, under-reimbursements by insurers, and inappropriate denials by insurers and government employees. Furthermore, they presented steps to take to prevent being victimized by "the system." And what is the system? In America, it is a hybrid of private healthcare providers, massive insurance companies, and governments at the state and national levels. Unlike Britain with its single-payer National Health System, this public-private mixed-breed creates the need for patient advocate professionals, who take up the cudgels on behalf of the medically disadvantaged and the financially strapped.

Can the ailing health care system be cured? Yes, but only with new ideas. Health care reform is stuck because there has not been an acceptable reform proposal. Providing insurance coverage to more people only increases the total cost of health care, and with insurance, costs are controlled by undesirable increases in the use of managed care. Single payer proposals involve unacceptable government price controls. Balanced Choice has the new ideas needed to fix the health care system. It provides the same universal coverage as a single payer system does, but it does not have government price controls. Overall, it costs less than is currently spent on health care in the U.S. Because it benefits consumers, providers, and employers, the resulting political alliance could be powerful enough to change the U. S. health care systems. This book begins curing the system by explaining how Balanced Choice works and what needs to be done. To learn more about Balanced Choice or to download the first chapter of Balanced Choice: A Common Sense Cure for the U.S. Health Care Systems, visit www.BalancedChoiceHealthCare.org.

Thick as Glue depicts the experiences the writer encountered through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Thick as Glue explores the challenges in the writer's life, such as racism on the mission field, betrayal of love, abuse, and poverty as a child. She leans on a higher power in life, which is God. Annette Gaston was born a twin in 1955 with her sister, Annie. They were viewed as "miracle babies," because their brother, Mancie, was born mentally retarded. After the writer's father died when she was twelve years old, she experienced much poverty. But she managed to graduate from high school and college. In college is where she met her husband. He went into the ministry at age twenty-one. He met an African-American professor who convinced him to do missionary work in Africa. He left for Africa. The writer left the United States in 1979 to go to Sierra Leone, West Africa. The writer got married in Africa. The writer experienced some obstacles. She had to adapt to the African culture. The writer was exposed to witchcraft in Africa. Years later, when she returned to the United States, the spirit of witchcraft followed her in her personal life. She caught malaria in the village. Her condition worsened. She had to leave Africa. Thick as Glue recounts her impressions of living in Portugal and Trinidad. She confronted racism in Portugal. In Trinidad, her marital problems escalated. Because of the hardships on the mission field, the writer went through a divorce in 1988. She experienced depression. As a result of her depression, she was admitted to the hospital. She returned home to her twin sister in 1988 for emotional, financial, and spiritual support. The writer held on to her faith in God and persevered. She focused on God's promises.

We can't stop natural disasters but we can stop them being disastrous. One of the world's foremost risk experts tells us how. Year after year, floods wreck people's homes and livelihoods, earthquakes tear communities apart, and tornadoes uproot whole towns. Natural disasters cause destruction and despair. But does it have to be this way? In The Cure for Catastrophe, global risk expert Robert Muir-Wood argues that our natural disasters are in fact human ones: We build in the wrong places and in the wrong way, putting brick buildings in earthquake country, timber ones in fire zones, and coastal cities in the paths of hurricanes. We then blindly trust our flood walls and disaster preparations, and when they fail, catastrophes become even more deadly. No society is immune to the twin dangers of complacency and heedless development. Recognizing how disasters are manufactured gives us the power to act. From the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 to Hurricane Katrina, The Cure for Catastrophe recounts the ingenious ways in which people have fought back against disaster. Muir-Wood shows the power and promise of new predictive technologies, and envisions a future where information and action come together to end the pain and destruction wrought by natural catastrophes. The decisions we make now can save millions of lives in the future. Buzzing with political plots, newfound technologies, and stories of surprising resilience, The Cure for Catastrophe will revolutionize the way we conceive of catastrophes: though natural disasters are inevitable, the death and destruction are optional. As we brace ourselves for deadlier cataclysms, the cure for catastrophe is in our hands.

In this long-awaited updated edition of his groundbreaking work Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, renowned healthcare economist John Goodman ("father" of Health Savings Accounts) analyzes America's ongoing healthcare fiasco—including, for this edition, the extra damage Obamacare has inflicted on America's healthcare system. Goodman then provides what many critics of our healthcare system neglect: solutions. And not a moment too soon. Americans are entangled in a system with perverse incentives that raise costs, reduce quality, and make care less accessible. It's not just patients that need liberation from this labyrinth of confusion—it's doctors, businessmen, and institutions as well. Read this new work and discover: Why no one sees a real price for anything: no patient, no doctor, no employer, no employee How Obamacare's perverse incentives cause insurance companies to seek to attract the healthy and avoid the sick Why having a preexisting condition is actually WORSE under Obamacare than it was before—despite rosy political promises to the contrary Why emergency-room traffic and long waits for care have actually increased under Obamacare How Medicaid expansion spends new money insuring healthy, single adults, while doing nothing for the developmentally disabled who languish on waiting lists and children who aren't getting the pediatric care they need How the market for medical care COULD be as efficient and consumer-friendly as the market for cell phone repair... and what it would take to make that happen How to create centers of medical excellence, which compete to meet the needs of the chronically ill And much, much more ... Thoroughly researched, clearly written, and decidedly humane in its concern for the health of all Americans, John Goodman has written the healthcare book to read to understand today's healthcare crisis. His proposed solutions are bold, crucial, and most importantly, caring. Healthcare is complex. But this book isn't. It's clear, it's satisfying, and it's refreshingly human. If you read even one book about healthcare policy in America, this is the one to read.