This completely referenced, indexed book includes important insights for physicians, patients and politicians. It covers health-related topics ranging from the economy, the medical-industrial complex, taxation and outsourced jobs, to inexpensive remedies for gout, coronary artery inflammation and declining sexual potency. After explaining how such cheap, effective treatments harm everyone but the patient, von Hippel discusses hundreds of ways to reduce health care costs and improve patient outcomes. He further empowers patients by reviewing what medical care can and cannot achieve, and why screening tests and biopsies often give ambiguous results. His true medical tales will fascinate, educate, amuse and appall.