In this book, the authors, as policy analysts, examine the overall context and dynamics of modern medicine, focusing on the changing conditions of medical practice through the lens of corporatization of medicine, physician unionization, physician strikes, and current health policy directions. Conditions affecting the American medical profession have been dramatically altered by the continuing crises of cost increases, quality concerns, and lack of access facing our population, along with the ongoing corporatization toward bottom-line dictates. Pressures on practitioners have been intensifying with much greater scrutiny over their clinical decision-making. Topics explored among the chapters include:

History of the Corporatization of American Medicine: The Market Paradigm Reigns
Pharmaceuticals, Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Drug Store Chains, and Pharmacy Benefit Manager/Insurer Integration
Medical Practice: From Cottage Industry toCorporate Practice
Medical Malpractice Crisis: Oversight of the Practice of Medicine
Big Data: Information Technology as Control over the Profession of Medicine
Physician Employment Status: Collective Bargaining and StrikesThe Corporatization of American Health Care offers different perspectives with the hopes that physicians will unite in a new awareness and common cause to curtail excessive profit-making, renew professional altruism, restore the charitable impulse to health provider institutions, and unite with other professionals to truly raise levels of population health and the quality of health care. It is also a necessary resource for health policy analysts, healthcare administrators, health law attorneys, and other associated health professions.

Auteur

J. Warren Salmon, PhD, is an author, researcher, and lecturer. Previously, he was Professor of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He was formerly a Professor in and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Administration, College of Pharmacy; Professor of Public Policy Analysis, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs; and Adjunct Professor of Medical Education, College of Medicine at UIC. Prior to coming to UIC, Professor Salmon held faculty appointments at Thomas Jefferson Medical College and Drexel/Hahnemann Medical College, both in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Professor Salmon's research interests have focused on the corporatization of medicine and pharmacy, managed care pharmacy, urban healthcare delivery, comparative healthcare systems, global pharmaceutical industry developments, and alternative and complementary medicines, among selected health policy issues. He edited Alternative Medicines: Popular and Policy Perspectives (Tavistock/Methuen/Routledge, 1984); (with Jeffrey W. Todd) The Corporatization of Health Care: A Two Day Symposium and Public Hearing (Illinois Public Health Association, 1988); (with Eberhard Goepel) Community Participation and Empowerment Strategies in Health Promotion, 7 volumes (Zentrum fuer Interdisziplinare Forschung, 1990); The Corporate Transformation of Health Care, Part I: Issues and Directions (Baywood, 1990); The Corporate Transformation of Health Care, Part II: Reflections and Implications (Baywood, 1994); and (with Linda Shapiro) Health Care for Chicagoans: How Will Health System Integration Affect the Health of the Public? (Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, 1995). Dr. Salmon resides in River Forest, Illinois as a still active independent researcher, writer, mentor, and frequent lecturer.

Stephen L. Thompson, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Health Studies Department of the College of Professional Studies and Advancement at National Louis University (NLU) in Chicago, Illinois. He is the former Associate Dean and former Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at National Louis University. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago in Health Policy and Administration in 2000, his Master of Science in Industrial Relations from Loyola University Chicago in 1984, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1975. He also completed a program in Respiratory Therapy at Northwestern University Affiliated Programs in 1975, and is a Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) and a Neonatal/Pediatric Specialist (NPS). He teaches in the Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Health Administration, and the Bachelor of Health Care Leadership programs at NLU. His major interests are in health policy, research methodology, and unions and collective bargaining and organizational theory. He has published in the areas of Collective Bargaining and Physicians, Health Reform, and Privatization of Public Education.

Contenu
IntroductionThis intro chapter will elaborate on the purpose of the book, followed by overviews of each chapter.

Chapter 1 The Corporatization of Medicine: The Market ParadigmSince the 1970s, the corporatization of medicine has completely transformed the American health care delivery system; it also dramatically altered the practice of medicine and is eroding professional altruism and the dedication to science in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. The late New England Journal of Medicine Editor Arnold Relman decried the new medical-industrial complex -- the for-profit intrusion into hospitals, nursing homes, home care, dialysis centers, and ambulatory care. Also, the pharmacy benefit management industry, which is completely for profit, arose in the late 1990s, and, along with provider institutions, is nurtured by phenomenal federal subsidization through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Part D Medicare program. Another unique phenomenon to our nation is the rapid rise of retail clinics now eclipsing ambulatory care under the aegis of corporate pharmacy chains. Quentin Young has pointed out the "vampire effect": the so-called "not-for-profit" providers being bitten by the for-profit investor providers, making their performance behaviors convergent with a complete focus on bottom-line results at the expense of access and quality health care. Beyond just the for-profit provision of services is a hugely profitable set of supply firms that have long benefited from the "medical-industrial complex," often at the expense of patient protections. These include pharmaceutical firms, medical device makers, health information technology, construction and management consulting, and accounting, legal, and other services that providers depend upon and are paid for through the public financing of the system.
Chapter 2 - ObamaCare: What Went Wrong?The Obama Administration recognized the necessity of moving toward care for the uninsured, which had risen to over 47 million Americans denied care. In addition to this group, perhaps a larger number of people had private insurance or other means of paying for medical care, but it was woefully inadequate, due to the large number of underinsured. ObamaCare provides for some cost-control mechanisms, but not sufficient enough to quell the incentives to price increases for accelerating the profits of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and a host of other upstarts that began to cash in on their new federal subsidization. Needless to say, enough studies in health services research continue to identify major quality issues, even while metrics are being developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the private insurance industry to address quality issues.
Yet, Obamacare continues to represent centrist politics and incremental reform, which accepts the belief that marketplace medicine is the clear U.S. reality. Policies to support it are in tune with what corporate payers and the ever increasing number of private providers feel …