An expert debunks popular misconceptions about health policy, including the merits of single-payer plans, and offers an alternative. In the battle over health care reform we can try to fashion new policies based on old ideas—or we can acknowledge today's demographic and economic realities. In Health Care Turning Point, health policy expert Roger Battistella argues that the conventional wisdom that dominates health policy debates is out of date. Battistella takes on popular misconceptions about the advantages of single-payer plans, the role of the market, and other health policy issues and outlines a pragmatic new approach. Few would disagree that the current system is broken. But, Battistella asserts provocatively, a government takeover of health insurance patterned after Medicare and Medicaid won't work either. Battistella argues that contrary to popular belief, single-payer coverage will not lower health spending but would encourage overconsumption and drive costs up. If consumers were responsible for buying their own health insurance (as they are for buying their own car and home insurance), he argues, they'd look for value and demand greater price and quality transparency from providers. The economic shibboleth that the principles of market competition don't apply to health care is nonsense, Battistella says. We won't achieve real health care reform until policy makers adjust to this reality and adopt a more pragmatic view.

Artificial Intelligence is here, today. How can society make the best use of it? Until recently, "artificial intelligence" sounded like something out of science fiction. But the technology of artificial intelligence, AI, is becoming increasingly common, from self-driving cars to e-commerce algorithms that seem to know what you want to buy before you do. Throughout the economy and many aspects of daily life, artificial intelligence has become the transformative technology of our time. Despite its current and potential benefits, AI is little understood by the larger public and widely feared. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has given rise to concerns that hidden technology will create a dystopian world of increased income inequality, a total lack of privacy, and perhaps a broad threat to humanity itself. In their compelling and readable book, two experts at Brookings discuss both the opportunities and risks posed by artificial intelligence--and how near-term policy decisions could determine whether the technology leads to utopia or dystopia. Drawing on in-depth studies of major uses of AI, the authors detail how the technology actually works. They outline a policy and governance blueprint for gaining the benefits of artificial intelligence while minimizing its potential downsides. The book offers major recommendations for actions that governments, businesses, and individuals can take to promote trustworthy and responsible artificial intelligence. Their recommendations include: creation of ethical principles, strengthening government oversight, defining corporate culpability, establishment of advisory boards at federal agencies, using third-party audits to reduce biases inherent in algorithms, tightening personal privacy requirements, using insurance to mitigate exposure to AI risks, broadening decision-making about AI uses and procedures, penalizing malicious uses of new technologies, and taking pro-active steps to address how artificial intelligence affects the workforce. Turning Point is essential reading for anyone concerned about how artificial intelligence works and what can be done to ensure its benefits outweigh its harm.

If the furious debate around the state of healthcare in the US has led to any consensus, it‘s that the system should be delivering better quality for less cost than it does. The truth is that our healthcare system is a sprawling mix of competing interests in which those of the patient are valued least. Too much discussion has devolved to simplistic

Are you ready to create a new Turning Point in your life? Have you ever looked back over time and noticed that there were certain turning points that literally changed the direction of your life? For most people, these turning points are created by circumstance and without direction. In this life-changing book, Dr Rohan Weerasinghe will show you exactly how to create and direct your own turning points whenever you choose to. You will be guided through a Six Step Change Process that can be applied to any area of your life, from health to relationships and from money to career. You will also be given practical, powerful tools that will enable you to: Identify exactly whose values you are living by, Create a completely new financial template for your life, Inject more health and vitality into your life, Discover the seven blocks that crush positive change, Focus in on your true life-purpose, Find the critical point of contact between intent and attraction, Discover the recipe for creating lifelong fun and passionate relationships. A 6 Step Process for Transforming Your Life.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Danielle Steel’s powerful new novel, four trauma doctors—the best and brightest in their field—confront exciting new challenges, both personally and professionally, when given an unusual opportunity. Bill Browning heads the trauma unit at San Francisco’s busiest emergency room, SF General. With his ex-wife and daughters in London, he immerses himself in his work and lives for rare visits with his children. A rising star at her teaching hospital, UCSF at Mission Bay, Stephanie Lawrence has two young sons, a frustrated stay-at-home husband, and not enough time for any of them. Harvard-educated Wendy Jones is a dedicated trauma doctor at Stanford, trapped in a dead-end relationship with a married cardiac surgeon. And Tom Wylie’s popularity with women rivals the superb medical skills he employs at his Oakland medical center, but he refuses to let anyone get too close, determined to remain unattached forever. These exceptional doctors are chosen for an honor and a unique project: to work with their counterparts in Paris in a mass-casualty training program. As professionals, they will gain invaluable knowledge from the program. As ordinary men and women, they will find that the City of Light opens up incredible new possibilities, exhilarating, enticing, and frightening. When an unspeakable act of mass violence galvanizes them into action, their temporary life in Paris becomes a stark turning point: a time to face harder choices than they have ever made before—with consequences that will last a lifetime.

The former president's account of his first political battle reveals how his entrance into politics was riddled by a volatile political scene in the South that was spurred by the Supreme Court's "One man, one vote" decision

This compelling text provides an overview of the available technology for early detection and therapeutic management of vascular risk factors to Alzheimer’s before severe cognitive impairment symptoms appear. Chapters bring the reader from the trackless clinical research that has characterized Alzheimer’s progress for the last 20 years, to a nexus of new ideas and concepts that can change our outlook of this dementia. In-depth examinations of various hypotheses, preventive measures, current and prospective treatments are openly and clearly explored. The author discusses in depth his proposal of the vascular hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease which has become a mother-lode for basic and clinical studies and a key approach to the prevention of this dementia.Alzheimer’s Turning Point offers professionals, students and those looking to learn more about this disorder a fresh clinical perspective of this devastating disease.