Here are 100 books that Risky Business fans have personally recommended if you like
Risky Business.
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My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
Eminently readable, this is a classic book by the doyen of American health economics that explains in non-technical terms the economics of health and medical care. It has been updated with several essays that Fuchs has published in the almost five decades since the book was first published.
Since the first edition of Who Shall Live? (1974), over 100,000 students, teachers, physicians, and general readers from more than a dozen fields have found this book to be a reader-friendly, authoritative introduction to economic concepts applied to health and medical care.Health care is by far the largest industry in the United States. It is three times larger than education and five times as large as national defense. In 2001, Americans spent over $12,500 per person for hospitals, physicians, drugs and other health care services and goods. Other high-income democracies spend one third less, enjoy three more years of life…
Social Security for Future Generations
by
John A. Turner,
This book provides new options for reform of the Social Security (OASI) program. Some options are inspired by the U.S. pension system, while others are inspired by the literature on financial literacy or the social security systems in other countries.
An example of our proposals inspired by the U.S. pension…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
Another classic book that describes the history of American medicine and organized medicine’s interactions with the political process.
It is necessary background to understand the predominance of employment-based health insurance and why the 2010 Affordable Care Act was such a breakthrough. Starr is a Princeton sociologist who participated in the 1990s debate on the failed Clinton health insurance plan.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, The Social Transformation of American Medicine is a landmark history of the American health care system, examining how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. Beginning in 1730 and coming up to the present day, renowned sociologist Paul Starr traces the transformation of our national health care system into a private corporate medical institution that dominates the field and threatens the sovereignty of the medical profession. In this new and revised edition, Paul Starr will bring his research…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
In individual chapters, this book describes every American President’s approach to health policy from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush (it omits Gerald Ford).
It describes their personal and familial interactions with health and medical care as well as their foibles and habits. It is a fascinating read, especially for those of an age who personally lived through some of these Presidents.
Even the most powerful men in the world are human - they get sick, take dubious drugs, drink too much, contemplate suicide, fret about ailing parents, and bury people they love. Young Richard Nixon watched two brothers die of tuberculosis, even while doctors monitored a suspicious shadow on his own lungs. John Kennedy received last rites four times as an adult, and Lyndon Johnson suffered a 'belly buster' of a heart attack. David Blumenthal and James A. Morone explore how modern presidents have wrestled with their own mortality - and how they have taken this most human experience to heart…
Social Security for Future Generations
by
John A. Turner,
This book provides new options for reform of the Social Security (OASI) program. Some options are inspired by the U.S. pension system, while others are inspired by the literature on financial literacy or the social security systems in other countries.
An example of our proposals inspired by the U.S. pension…
My mother wanted me to be a physician, but as a child I was very squeamish about human biology and knew that wasn't for me. In college I was exposed to economics and found it, and the policy debates about national health insurance, fascinating. So, maybe with my mother’s wishes in the back of my mind, I became a health economist. I was privileged to direct a large randomized trial called the RAND Health Insurance Experiment, which varied the cost of medical care to families. This project lasted more than a decade and got me so deep into the economics of health and medical care that I became a professor of health policy and management.
Almost all Americans think the high cost of health care is a major problem and a large number think access to services is also a problem.
Many, however, think that if a person has access to medical care and good insurance, quality of care is excellent. That’s sometimes true, but often not as this book describes.
In the United States, the soaring cost of health care has become an economic drag and a political flashpoint. Moreover, although the country's medical spending is higher than that of any other nation, health outcomes are no better than elsewhere, and in some cases are even worse. In The Quality Cure, renowned health care economist and former Obama advisor David Cutler offers an accessible and incisive account of the issues and their causes, as well as a road map for the future of health care reform--one that shows how information technology, realigned payment systems, and value-focused organizations together have the…
Known for my sweet billionaire romance novels, I am a purveyor of book boyfriends and happy endings. I absolutely love romance stories as you know exactly what you’re in for when you pick them up. You know there will be a Happily Ever After no matter how dire things get at any given point in the story so you can really just sit back and enjoy the ride. As an author I always write epilogues and I’ve built up a growing universe where characters pop in and out of each other’s books. It’s my happy place and as an author I love sharing that world with others.
I found this entire series a refreshing and original set of Billionaire trope romances, as each of the heroes lives with a permanent disability. One really important thing I think Tamie does really well with her books is that they don’t come across as shallow or exoticized – the characters are never magically healed for their happily ever afters – they have their challenges and it makes them who they are, but they don’t need those things to be fixed to be happy and whole. She has a lot of personal insight into this as well, as she covers in her Author’s Note that she wrote these books out of a personal desire to bring representation to this community out of love for her grandson who also – like Bran – happens to be blind.
Stephanie Caldwell fell in love with her boss, but he's too clueless to notice. And being blind is no excuse!
Steph doesn’t care that Bran is blind—at least he’ll never see the longing looks she gives him. If only she could warn him about the lack of love on his conniving fiancée’s face. But Steph has to keep her mouth shut, or she could lose her job, along with the health insurance that keeps her daughter alive.
Billionaire Branson Knight knows women regard him as a pitiful blind man, his wealth his only attraction. So his engagement is merely a…
Healthcare and the system that delivers it have been central to my life since I was a child. I was born with hemophilia and experienced many complications and hospitalizations. I received a liver transplant thirteen years ago because a blood transfusion-acquired Hepatitis C damaged it. I have been active in advocacy organizations, including being President of the Hemophilia Association of New York, being on the Board of LiveOnNY, and being the founder and President of the Hemophilia Services Consortium. I have interacted with many patients and their families and strongly felt the need to offer a book that informs, inspires, and helps them manage the challenges of a scary diagnosis.
Dr. Magee had a career that spanned everything from working as a primary care doctor to working for the government to working for big pharma. He is very open about all his experiences and in explaining why the healthcare system is so complex and dysfunctional.
He shares individual stories that take place in each of these venues that are entertaining and informative, and I very much liked.
"Code Blue" is the phrase customarily announced over hospital public address systems to alert staff to an urgent medical emergency requiring immediate attention.
How has the United States, with more resources than any nation, developed a healthcare system that delivers much poorer results, at near double the cost of any other developed country-such that legendary seer Warren Buffett calls the Medical Industrial Complex "the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness"? Mike Magee, M.D., who worked for years inside the Medical Industrial Complex administering a hospital and then as a senior executive at the giant pharmaceutical company Pfizer, has spent the last…
Born and raised in the Chicago area, I worked in the automotive industry as a car salesperson and racing team manager, financial services as a Registered Representative, and a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. An expat in Panama since 2004, I worked in business development for several healthcare products and co-founded an air medical transport service. Over the last decade, I’ve represented two businesses delivering protective medical care to high-net-worth individuals where I learned care’s gold standard from former White House physicians. My research included the books I recommend here and inspired me to write the Expat Health Guide for current and future expats.
Ever hear of MLR or Medical Loss Ratio? I had, but it didn’t click why it was a cruel joke on American healthcare consumers until I read Marshall’s book. His give a kid a bowl of ice cream analogy is so spot on that I asked for and received his permission to quote it in my book. My dad used to say that a sure sign of genius is making a complex subject understandable to an eighth grader. Marshall’s a genius. His insights stem from over 15 years of investigative reporting on the healthcare industry are critical to combatting a downright evil billing system. Whenever a friend mentions they’ve been in the hospital, or will be, I tell them to read this book.
From award-winning ProPublica reporter Marshall Allen, a primer for anyone who wants to fight the predatory health care system--and win.
Every year, millions of Americans are overcharged and underserved while the health care industry makes record profits. We know something is wrong, but the layers of bureaucracy designed to discourage complaints make pushing back seem impossible. At least, this is what the health care power players want you to think.
Never Pay the First Bill is the guerilla guide to health care the American people and employers need. Drawing on 15 years of investigating the health care industry, reporter Marshall…
I’ve had a severe hearing loss since birth and grew up dependent on lipreading and hearing aids. I’ve witnessed profound change in technology, from the large primitive hearing aid I had as a child, to digital and assistive listening technologies and the availability of cochlear implants. I’ve painfully navigated my way through public schools, and later at jobs, with an invisible disability. Today I am grateful for connectivity to the phone, captioning for movies and Zoom which enables me to lipread! I finally found my way to a life of creativity as a painter and writer.
Holston, a journalist and musician, went to bed one night and woke up the next morning virtually completely deaf.
His book is a fascinating account of how he clawed his way back to the hearing world through various misdiagnoses, a failed cochlear implant, and finally, after extensive rehabilitative therapy, a successful cochlear implant. I learned so much about the pros and cons and risks of cochlear implants, and how they have improved greatly over the years.
I loved the way he communicates his profound frustrations and fears through this painful process with a self-deprecating humor that makes the book, despite its serious subject matter, an entertaining as well as educational read.
From a renowned media critic to a man with sudden and full hearing loss, Noel Holston ran the gauntlet of diagnoses, health insurance, and cochlear implant surgery. On a spring night in 2010, Noel Holston, a journalist, songwriter, and storyteller, went to bed with reasonably intact hearing. By dawn, it was gone, thus beginning a long process of h
I’m a New Zealand philosopher who’s written a lot about the human enhancement debate. Philosophers are well known for their willingness to defend unpopular conclusions against all critics. Sometimes they engage in what I call “philosophical shit-stirring". You may think that’s a profanity but it’s actually a technical term. I’ve advocated some deliberately unpopular shit-stirring conclusions in the past. One of these is liberal eugenics - the idea that you can turn an evil like eugenics into something good by prefacing it with the feel-good term “liberal”. These dialogues are the beginning of a philosophical stock-take on what we should or might become.
Schneier’s book taught me that hacking isn’t just something that occasionally happens to your laptop. The powerful hack the laws that govern our society too.
I wondered how the hacking mindset could apply to enhancement techs. Which enhancement techs will the elite reserve for themselves and which might they impose on the gig workers of the future? Suppose Neuralink does manage to get its tech into our heads. Imagine Musk finds himself just short of the funds needed to found his planned Martian city. Might beneficiaries of his brain-computer interfaces find themselves abruptly subject to overpowering urges to immediately own ten Teslas? This sounds absurd.
Perhaps the right question to ask is how crazy it is relative to cities of a million on Mars by 2050. Is it beyond the reach of Musk’s rule-breaking, can-do imagination?
A hack is any means of subverting a system's rules in unintended ways. The tax code isn't computer code, but a series of complex formulas. It has vulnerabilities; we call them "loopholes." We call exploits "tax avoidance strategies." And there is an entire industry of "black hat" hackers intent on finding exploitable loopholes in the tax code. We call them accountants and tax attorneys.
In A Hacker's Mind, Bruce Schneier takes hacking out of the world of computing and uses it to analyse the systems that underpin our society: from tax laws to financial markets to politics. He reveals an…
I’ve studied Smith and his Scottish contemporaries, off and on, for over fifty years. My whole professional career has been spent at Glasgow University where Smith was both a student and later professor. I thus have a personal affinity to him and his work, all the more so because his published writings were all trailed in his professorial classroom. While I have published extensively on Smith, the particular book of mine that I’ve selected was chosen because I wanted to distill all my scholarship into a volume that would be accessible to non-academics.
This is a lively and engaging book that bears its learning lightly. That stylistic presentation is coupled with a broad agenda to counter common assumptions and distortions about Smith, with the aim, as Muller himself declares, to recover Smith’s own intentions from subsequent misreadings.
While opinionated it is even-handed, neither bland nor strident. What singles out this book and what I found distinctively insightful was a lengthy discussion of the differing receptions of Smith’s work in the two-hundred years since his death.
Counter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well-being of the populace and that government must intervene to counteract the negative effects of the pursuit of self-interest. Smith's analysis went beyond economics to embrace a larger "civilizing project" designed to create a more decent society.
