Healing the Harm in American Health Care
No matter your political beliefs, no matter your age or job, everyone needs access to quality healthcare. Unfortunately, in America we cannot seem to agree on how best to provide it.
With over thirty years of experience in the medical field, Joseph Q. Jarvis, MD, MSPH offers an in-depth look at our options:
• How do we make safe health care choices?
• Where have the politicians gotten it wrong?
• What can we do now to fix it?
Using true stories from his medical career and memorable anecdotes—you’ll never believe what one drunk miner did with a rabid bat!—Dr. Jarvis reveals the problems with American health care. Along with this, he offers dynamic solutions and a path forward.
If you’re looking to understand America’s crazy medical system, The Purple World is your best chance. Step up, learn more, and take charge of your own health care.
Editorial Reviews
Reviews for The Purple World
"In THE PURPLE WORLD, Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis gives readers a factual, comprehensive and well-written look at this very serious issue, not only telling what’s wrong with US healthcare, but giving information on how to make the system work. A worthwhile read for every US citizen."
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“Amazingly, he makes change seem not only smart, but feasible. Joseph Q. Jarvis has been examining America’s broken health-care system as a doctor and public health official for 40 years, and he has a sensible, reasoned prescription to fix what ails it, all detailed in his valuable and persuasive book, The Purple World. Non-ideological and straight-talking, Jarvis has provided patient care and negotiated with HMO executives, qualifying him to assess all sides of our behemoth system. His diagnosis is not surprising: Americans don’t have the best health care, only the most profitable. The “medical industry complex,” he writes, exerts a “public-policy vise” on Congress, which allows insurance companies to transfer the growing price of care to patients. Medicine has been reduced to a business opportunity, but one cannot maximize profits and optimize care, he argues. His prescription?” READ FULL REVIEW...
"Jarvis begins by establishing the crisis facing America, making his political stance known in the opening of this book, but fortunately, this is not a 200-page rant about one party’s missteps when it comes to healthcare. Instead, Jarvis takes readers through his own life and medical practice, giving most of this book the feel of a intimate, but intentional memoir. From specific patient anecdotes to larger existential crises he has faced throughout his career, Jarvis illuminates the severe failings of our medical system in comparison to the rest of the world, but does so through heartbreaking, frustrating and viscerally affecting examples. One point that sticks out in particular is the fact that only 1% of the funds spend on healthcare go to public health services, despite that being where the majority of major community health achievements are made. These small, memorable points from the author tie the personal stories together, and link them back to the much larger and more relatable issues for readers." READ FULL REVIEW
"Jarvis draws upon his experience as a Nevada state health officer, clinical practitioner, and health policy advocate to anecdotally discuss the mismanagement and failures of the US health care system. The text’s core assertion is that Democrats (blue) and Republicans (red) are too reliant on health industry lobbyists to be motivated to make adequate strides toward better health care, resulting in a mixed “purple world.” It advocates for regulations and health care reform focused on cost cutting without letting the quality of care drop, and it documents examples of brokenness, including outbreaks of infectious diseases and state officials failing to address safety hazards like mold and tobacco smoke. The book’s examples of health care mismanagement and inaction are attention-grabbing and appalling, revealing part of the health care industry that few ever see. Humor appears at important moments and is uplifting in the midst of otherwise bleak work, as when the book relates a case of a scam pharmaceutical company being copycatted by a second, also ineffective pill made of actual Nevada dirt." READ FULL REVIEW
"[Dr. Jarvis'] assessment of the American health care system is bluntly and uniformly negative, and throughout the book, he rails against politicians on both sides of the aisle, public officials, and insurance companies. He sees them as all contributing to “a wasteful system that is least able (among first-world countries) to prevent deaths that should be amenable to health-care interventions.” American voters also share blame for not insisting on health care reform, writes Jarvis: “If you want this to stop, you must do the necessary political heavy lifting—you must repeatedly throw people out of office until they get the message.” READ FULL REVIEW
Featured On:
Options for a Better Health Care System
Health Care Reform
If the safety record of American hospitals were applied to the airline industry…
…a fully loaded 747 would crash every other week.
You get what you pay for, right?
Not when it comes to health care in America. We pay twice as much as any other developed nation for health care, yet we have the worst health of them all. And while we pay the highest taxes for health care in the world, tens of thousands of Americans die each year from treatable illness merely because they can’t afford medical care.
How did we reach this shameful state? You’ll be shocked to find out not only who’s to blame, but more importantly, how easy the solution can be.
In this riveting book, Dr. Joseph Jarvis, MD, examines how our nation’s focus has radically shifted from the disease to the dollar—drastically harming Americans in the process. With unforgettable stories drawn from Dr. Jarvis’s thirty-plus years in the medical profession, he gets you thinking about health-care reform in a big way (you’ll never get over the drunk miner who spent the night dipping a dead, rabid bat into every bar patron’s drink!).
And through other captivating examples, from brothels to nursing homes, he shows how poorly the average American understands how to make safe health-care choices in the so-called medical marketplace and how poorly politicians serve as arbiters of what good health policy should be.
Most importantly, this book can finally make a difference: instead of simply pointing fingers and wailing about the outrages, Dr. Jarvis offers a workable solution that can be quickly implemented by each state.
Before you finish this book, you’ll get a compelling look at how politicians can offer real solutions and how the American electorate can finally do the right thing in health-system reform: protect our families, our country, and our future.
