Healthy Medicine #136: Overtreated

Dr Zieve talks with writer Shannon Brownlee about how systemic problems with our health-care system are causing poor outcomes for many Americans. Shannon Brownlee MS is acting director of the New America Health Policy Program at dartmouth College. A nationally known writer and essayist whose work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Slate, Time, and Washington Monthly among many other publications, she is best known for her groundbreaking work on avoidable health care, the patchy quality of medical evidence, and the implications for health-care policy. Her book, Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer, was named the best economics book of 2007 by New York Times economics correspondent David Leonhardt. Brownleeís current research and writing focus on issues surrounding delivery system reform, clinical evidence, and health care costs.