False Hopes (Hardcover)

Sure to spark heated debate, this ground-breaking book by one of the nation's leading experts on medical ethics traces the root cause of America's health-care crisis not to inefficient organization or waste, but rather to society's and the medical community's relentless quest for perfection. Seeking to find a cure for every disease, seeming to attempt to extend life indefinitely, and giving priority to individual rather than societal needs, today's medicine distorts a reasonable approach to medical goals and in the process makes health delivery increasingly unaffordable.

Daniel Callahan boldly proposes a sustainable medicine that gives priority to preventing and treating diseases that afflict the many rather than the few, improves the quality of life, and focuses our necessarily limited resources on primary care and public health. It is in our power to make health care affordable and available to everyone if we respect and accept the biological limits to good health.