THE PURPLE WORLD: Healing the Harm in American Health Care by Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a scary and unfortunately realistic look at the U.S. healthcare industry, that is in his words, “abysmal”–the most expensive, most wasteful and least effective of all first world countries where nearly 20% of our GNP is devoted to healthcare. Dr. Jarvis puts the blame right on the monetizing of healthcare and the greedy and often unethical practices by for-profit healthcare insurers. The title for the book is taken from his medical school days, where one professor stated; “If urine were red and stool were blue we would live in a (contaminated) purple world”.
Dr. Jarvis begins his terrifying tale by giving a brief history of modern medicine, with its origins in Europe, highlighting breakthroughs like the discovery of the clinical science of surgery to discoveries like penicillin and the use of hand washing for germ control (a less purple world) and the brilliant (mostly) men behind the breakthroughs. He also tells of his own nightmarish experiences with healthcare as a public health official in Nevada, the political and medical barriers that were put in front of him–making it at times almost impossible to do his job. He also discusses the still present day practice of Quackery by doctors to treat their patients.
Dr. Jarvis emphasizes the fact that the US healthcare industry is irrevocably broken and cannot be fixed until “we the people” remove the insurance lobbyists that have many US political officials either in their pockets or so loaded down with threats that they’re ineffective and useless. A true bipartisan, Dr. Jarvis is against both Obamacare (mandated) and it’s “mean-spirited corollary”, Trumpcare, calling them both massively expensive and ineffectual. He sites the fact that the most common cause of bankruptcy in the US is healthcare related.
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.
~Debbie Haupt for IndieReader