Fixing Medical Prices explores the activities of a largely unknown but highly powerful committee affiliated with the American Medical Association (AMA) that advises Medicare on the relative value of different medical services. Unwittingly or not, its recommendations set off a chain reaction that impacts all Americans. Medicare follows most of its fee recommendations, which are modeled by private insurers and federal and state programs. The book adds...

You might think the biggest problem in medical care is that it costs too much. Or that health insurance is too expensive, too uneven, too complicated -- and gives you too many forms to fill out. But the central problem is that too much medical care has too little value. Dr. H. Gilbert Welch is worried about too much medical care. It's not to deny that some people get too little medical care, rather that the conventional concern about "too little"...