The Great American Healthcare Scam: How Kickbacks, Collusion and Propaganda Have Exploded Healthcare Costs in the United States Paperback – March 12, 2020

This is a very enlightening book to say the least from a doctor who had to work and survive in "the system". His research, findings and personal insight and experience within the medical insurance and billing area is stunning, and probably one of the reasons medical costs continue to skyrocket! Once this information was made public a few years ago, it appears that something happened to this good doctor (I'm speculating he got heat from Big Powerful Business's) because nearly all of his youtube videos and publications including this book, audio book and his website have pretty much disappeared from the web and other locations. One has to ask WHY this happened? Did he uncover and make public the dark side of the medical billing and insurance industry? If you can find this book, read it and make your own decisions.

Great American Healthcare Scam grabs you by the "out of pocket" and makes medical billing fascinating. Chapters like "The Price is a Secret," "Bleed Them to Keep Them Scared," "The High-Deductible Trap" will have you on the edge of your seat. I hope it won't spoil the book to give away the ending -"Seniors with Medicare have one of the best deals for their healthcare anyone can get in this country." Understanding that sentence is saving my family thousands of dollars a year.I'm a researcher. When my husband & I turned 64, I began researching Medicare. I read all I could find, I talked with other seniors, I went to seminars about Medicare offered by insurance agents. Everyone agreed: Medicare was "ok" for the basics but you were still at great financial risk (possibly bankruptcy) because of all the costs Medicare didn't cover. Everyone agreed: protect yourself with Medicare Advantage or by adding a Medicare Supplement Plan. But one thought kept bothering me: If the financial exposure is so great in this population of aging people with pre-existing conditions, why are all these third parties so eager to cover our care? And why are these companies soaring on the stock market?As I struggled with this question I discovered David Belk's True Cost of Healthcare site. Dr. Belk, an internist, laid out an insurance and healthcare landscape that has figured out how to promote and exploit the utterly crazy way medical billing works (or doesn't work.) Bottom line: this system works for them (insurance, healthcare) and confuses the hell out of us. That confusion is money in the bank for them. Dr. Belk sees how this scam (and there is no other word) plays out on a day to day basis with real patients and real bills. The "real bills" is the key - until we know how to read these bills we will be at the mercy of a medical system that profits from our fear and confusion.This book pulls together the website information amazingly well. The pace and language of the book is very readable and the inclusion of actual bills (and stories of his patients) teaches you what you need to know. How I wish I had read the chapter on high-deductible insurance five years ago! How I wish I had read the chapters about drug prices ten years ago!

I found Dr Belk via YouTube as I was investigating Medicare and Medicare supplements. His videos was clear and persuasive, and I was happy to buy this book to "fill in the gaps".His perspectives on the perverse incentives of the American healthcare system were eye-opening.Now I go to Youtube and his video list is completely empty, his website is an empty shell, and this book is no longer available. I am assuming that he has been sued into silence. You can still find a few Youtube videos of his presentations hosted by other organizations, though I doubt that will last.If you can find a copy of this book, grab it. It is everything the US insurance industry does not want you to know.

I won't pretend to know enough about the subject to offer an opinion on the book's accuracy.I have followed Dr. Belk's writings for some time.The only other book I've read on the subject was The Company That Solved Health Care.But for some time I've wondered how health care seems to defy the laws of economic gravity and Dr. Belk has provided some answers.I'd say he's succeeded in at least making an understandable case.The Questions -1) Are his assertions correct? Probably. I can vouch for an example he provides regarding LabCorp pricing.2) More specifically, is healthcare pricing opaque and intentionally so? It seems to be.3) Can anything be done, given the size, complexity, and political might of the system? I don't know. Once a subject reaches a certain level of complexity, most people defer to experts or tune out entirely. I did. But age has a way of changing priorities.I didn't bust my ass for decades and forego a lot of instant gratification just so I finance the college tuition of some insurance exec's kid.Maybe the information and perspective Dr. Belk has provided will help with that.

This book provides valuable insight into our healthcare system. One of the authors, a doctor, uses real-life examples from his practice to illustrate his points. He explains why we see such big bills from the hospitals and doctors, the large deductions taken by the insurance providers, how much Medicare pays, and what's left over for you to pay. He also explains the price structure for prescription drugs in the US and why they are higher than elsewhere in the world. He calls it a scam and I'm personally convinced that he is right.Dr. Belk also provides insight into the future of Medicare and how we as a society ought to proceed. I'm not holding my breath that that will happen. A great book to understand health insurance and our healthcare system.