Submitted by Emily and John Geyman

“Crisis in U.S. Health Care: Corporate Power vs. The Common Good,” published this month by John Geyman, M.D. of Friday Harbor, discusses the issues currently being debated in Congress. This book takes a 60-year view of our health care system, from 1956 to 2016. It’s told from the perspective of a family physician who lived through those years in two rural communities — including Friday Harbor — as well as a professor of family medicine in medical schools, journal editor and health care researcher and writer for over four decades. It is an objective, non-partisan look at major trends in health care, including increasing technology, uncontrolled costs and depersonalization. The concluding chapters present three health care reform options: Obamacare repair, Republican proposals for health care and Medicare For All, or national health insurance.

“John Geyman has written an expert and highly readable account of the American health care system,” said Marcia Angell, M.D., former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, “how in the past 60 years it changed from a system devoted to caring for patients to one devoted to maximizing revenue and he tells us clearly how to fix it.”

The book is available at Griffin Bay Books, Island Studios and the Office Center.