Common Courage Press • Foreword by Ralph Nader
Making a Killing
HMOs and the Threat to Your Health
Published by Common Courage Press
ISBN 978-1-56751-168-0
230 pages
HMOs and the Threat to Your Health
HMO Insurance by the Numbers
Jamie Court and Francis Smith take on the corporate world of managed healthcare and explain, in plain language, what HMO Insurance means for your health — and who really profits from the managed-care system.
Through chilling real-life patient stories and hard data, Making a Killing documents how HMOs systematically deny and delay necessary treatment to minimize costs and maximize shareholder returns, often with catastrophic consequences for patients and their families.
A landmark work that exposed the dark side of "managed care" long before the debate reached its current urgency.
Jamie Court discusses the Affordable Care Act, extensions to coverage mandates, and what has — and hasn't — changed since Making a Killing was first published.
These are not statistics. These are real patients whose lives were upended by HMO profit decisions.
"My problems with my legs and nerves worsened over the next two years and my HMO wasn't able to develop any remedy."
— Bill Beaver
"I had a common task: using my medical expertise for the financial benefit of the organization, often at great harm and potentially death to some patients."
— Dr. Linda Peeno, former HMO Medical Director
Steven Olsen's doctors told his parents a scan was unnecessary, ignoring his mother's concerns — saving all of $800 the test would have cost. Three days later, Steven fell into a coma.
— Steven Olsen
The doctors wanted Stephanie transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital. Her HMO denied the request — she had to fight her recovery alone.
— Stephanie Ulrich
"Provides one of the most descriptive records of the horrors of HMO medicine during the 1990s. 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. They reveal how and why most HMOs have broken their early promises."
"One of the most powerful indictments of the managed care industry. This scathing exposé presents case histories of those who have lost their health or their lives because an HMO denied or delayed vital treatments, tests or surgery. This lively probe is must reading for anyone concerned with the health of the U.S. medical system."
"A gripping story of excessive power without restraint that comes down hard on powerless and defenseless people. Who speaks for them and those who follow them? It could be you the readers."
"Upton Sinclair would be proud."
Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, iBooks, and ePub wherever you buy or read books.
How to win grassroots campaigns, pass ballot box laws, and get the change we voted for.
If you have a proposed addition to this book that reveals new evidence about corporate medicine's offenses or reckless medical downsizing, please submit your story.
The HMOs and managed care corporations named in the submissions will be approached for comment before a selected passage is added, and HMO responses will be included. Reader-amended text will be published in future printings of the trade publication.
The authors will examine the documentation and select submissions that:
Making a Killing by Jamie Court & Francis Smith
