Critical Condition or La traves a de Enrique

Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business--and Bad Medicine

Author: Donald L Barlett

Exposing the most controversial, little-known practices of America’s most flawed system, Time magazine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team pulls back the curtain on the health care industry to explain exactly how things grew so out of control.

Dirty examination and operating rooms in doctor’s offices and hospitals . . . Health care executives pulling in millions in bonuses for denying treatment to the sick . . . More than 100 million people with inadequate or no medical coverage . . . This may sound like the predicament of a third-world nation, but this is America’s health care reality today. The U.S. spends more on health care than any other nation, yet our benefits are shrinking and life expectancy is shorter here than in countries that spend significantly less per capita. Meanwhile, HMOs, pharmaceutical companies, and hospital chains reap tremendous profits, while politicians—beholden to insurers and drug companies—enact legislation for the benefit of the few rather than the many, while the entire system is on the verge of collapse.

In Critical Condition, award-winning investigative journalists Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele expose the horror of what health care in America has become. They profile patients and doctors trapped by the system and offer startling personal stories that illuminate what’s gone wrong. Doctors tell of being second-guessed and undermined by health care insurers; nurses recount chilling tales of hospital meltdowns; patients explain how they’ve been victimized by a system that is meant to care for them. Drug companies profit by selling pills in the same mannerthat Madison Avenue sells soap, while Wall Street rakes in billions by building up and then tearing down health care businesses. And politicians pass legislation perpetuating the injustices and out-right fraud the system encourages.

By analyzing the industry and offering an insightful prescription for getting it back on the right track, Critical Condition is an enormously compelling investigative work that addresses the concerns of every American.

The Washington Post - Jerome P. Kassirer

Barlett and Steele diagnose the quality of American health care as second-rate "bad medicine." True, America's life expectancy trails that of many other countries, and on the World Health Organization's "healthy living" scale, the world's wealthiest country ranks 29th (behind Croatia!). But many of the examples in Critical Condition are sensational, high-profile cases of gross errors in small for-profit hospitals. Many doctors who work in academic medical centers would argue that their patients get quite good day-to-day care.

Publishers Weekly

Bestselling investigative journalists Barlett and Steele (America: What Went Wrong?) deliver a devastating indictment, supported by excellent research, of a health-care system that they say is failing to provide first-rate services to its citizens, 44 million of whom are without insurance. According to these Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, now with Time magazine, the U.S. compares poorly with other Westernized nations in delivering quality care and a healthy life expectancy, and preventing infant mortality. Per capita health-care spending continues to exceed the amount spent by many other countries, the authors say, because one out of every three U.S. dollars pays for administrative costs. The authors also present case histories of patients, some with life-threatening conditions, who were ignored by bureaucratic HMOs that put profit first. Barlett and Steele describe how health care first became driven by profits on Wall Street during the Reagan administration. Competing insurance plans, they say, led not to better choices for consumers, but to physicians who are prevented by insurers from prescribing needed treatments; a severe shortage of nurses; and unsafe hospitals where staff shortages and unsanitary conditions result from cost-cutting. The authors, who strongly advocate a single payer plan, successfully depict a health-care system in crisis. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (On sale Oct. 5) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Doctors overruled by HMOs. Big hospitals lacking basic supplies. Two investigative reporters let us know how sick our healthcare system really is. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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La travesнa de Enrique

Author: Sonia Nazario

En esta asombrosa historia real, la galardonada periodista Sonia Nazario relata la inolvidable odisea de un nino hondureno que enfrenta penurias y peligros para reunirse con su madre en los Estados Unidos.

Cuando Enrique tiene cinco anos, su madre, Lourdes, se marcha de Honduras para trabajar en los Estados Unidos. Esto le permite enviarle dinero a Enrique para que pueda comer mejor y asistir a la escuela mas alla del tercer grado.
Lourdes le promete a su hijo que regresara pronto, pero en los Estados Unidos las cosas no son faciles. Transcurren once anos. A Enrique lo desespera pensar que no volvera a ver a su madre, y se lanza solo en su busca desde Tegucigalpa con poco mas que un pedazo de papel donde ha escrito el numero telefonico de su madre en Carolina del Norte. Sin dinero, hara una travesia peligrosa e ilegal a lo largo de Mexico de la unica forma que puede: encaramado en los costados y en los techos de los trenes de carga.
Con recia determinacion y profundo anhelo, Enrique atraviesa mundos hostiles y desconocidos eludiendo pandilleros que controlan los techos de los trenes, bandidos despiadados y policias corruptos que solo quieren robarle lo que tiene y deportarlo. Enrique avanza a fuerza de ingenio, coraje, y esperanza-y tambien gracias a la bondad de los desconocidos. Es una travesia epica que hacen miles de ninos inmigrantes todos los anos para encontrarse con sus madres en los Estados Unidos.
Basado en la serie publicada por el periodico Los Angeles Times que gano dos premios Pulitzer-uno por el reportaje, el otro por la fotografia-La Travesia de Enrique es una historia para todos los tiempos sobre familias desgarradas por la separacion, sobre el anhelode volver a estar juntos y sobre un nino que arriesgara su vida para reencontrarse con la madre que ama.

Table of Contents:

	Mapa: La Travesia De Enrique: De Tegucigalpa A Nuevo Laredo	iv
	Prologo	vii
1	El Nino Que Quedo Atras	3
2	En Busca De Piedad	49
3	Ante La Bestia	67
4	Dadivas Y Fe	111
5	En La Frontera	151
6	Un Rio Oscuro, Quiza Una Nueva Vida	199
7	La Nina Que Quedo Atras	219
	Epilogo: Mujeres, Ninos Y El Debate Sobre La Inmigracion	267
	Notas	291
	Agradecimientos	321