Medical care in the United States has been loudly and repeatedly derided as inferior in comparison to health-care systems in much of the developed world and even in some relatively undeveloped nations.  Scott W. Atlas' new book In Excellent Health:  Setting the Record Straight on America's Health Care offers an alternative view of the much-maligned state of health care in America, challenging the statistics often cited as evidence that medical care in the U.S. is substandard and poor in value relative to that of other countries.

 















Atlas is a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at the Stanford University, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and a member of Hoover's Working Group on Health Care Policy, which is supported by The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee.

Rather than relying on purely subjective judgments about equity and fairness, In Excellent Health, from Hoover Institution Press, provides evidence to answer the paramount question when considering the quality of health care, "Where would you rather be when you are sick?"

Drawing from research documented in scientific and medical journals, Atlas defends both the quality of and access to medical care in America, compared to numerous countries with nationalized systems often held up as models for health-system reforms.  He then suggests a logical and complete reform plan designed to maintain choice and access to excellence and facilitate competition.

Atlas' proposal offers a series of key improvements in the three critical areas of the health-care puzzle -- tax structure, private-insurance markets, and government health-insurance programs -- that will reduce health costs and maintain essential support for the country's most-vulnerable citizens, seniors, and low-income families.