Exhaustive case study of one of the highest cost-per-person health care markets in the country. Too much first-person language for my taste. But this frames the the payer-vs-provider debate in way I wasn't yet familiar with. High marks for depth, enterprise, context.

Fascinating article about rising health care costs -- based on a case study of McAllen, Texas, one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country. This in-depth investigation reveals a troubling change in attitude when young doctors determine whether to operate, order more tests or send patients home with less costly remedies. This informative report is factual, fair and enterprising -- providing extensive context on this important topic.

A highly recommended read from the New Yorker's long time health care reporter. Gawande looks at both the macro and micro issues in providing quality health care, and offers a novel refocusing away from the question of "who pays", and instead looks at physicians' incentives, asking "Whom do we want in charge of managing the full complexity of medical care?"

This is an excellent article about costs of health care. For many years I have believed that companies that provide any type of care for humans should not be profit based. All members of Congress should read this story.

It's a long 8 pages. The average can be a poor statistical measure. When Bill Gates walks into a room of beggers, the average occupant becomes a millionaire. But once you get past that, Gawande provides some nuggets of information. The lack of preventative care as a cause is very notable. The social causes common to the financial collapse and the health care cost crisis are interesting: profit and greed taking precedence over community and social responsibility, with little monitoring and oversight. No mention is made of medical school costs that might be helping drive the greed paradigm in order to pay off debts.

Reads like a mystery story. Lots of detail, but mostly anecdotal. Ignores some possibilities, even as it makes the points that lead to them. Lots of good points, though. Doesn't mention the ratio of primary care physicians to specialists, even though it states that high-expense cities are less likely to have primary care physicians and manages to ask whether that is a factor in the series of questions at the end. Doesn't seem to be aware of the studies showing lower cost and better care when people have primary care physicians. Lists the oft-debunked medical savings accounts as a possible solution.

Gawande takes a different approach to looking at health care then most other publications. Other publications look at current plans and whether they would help fix the broken health care system; Gawande compares places that are broken and places that work and tries to understand why things are broken. This piece is ground breaking in its portrayal of the state of healthcare in America and where the medical incentives are. It will make you really reconsider how you look at ways to "fix" healthcare.