HMO abuse book - FREE

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If you are under an HMO, you've got to check this out:

Date: 12/20/99

Commercial Trade Book On HMO Abuses Is Now Free On Internet; Is First Virtual

Book Allowing Patients To Submit Their Proposed Additions

Interactive Making A Killing To Be Living Archive of HMO Secrets & Scandals

Today, the authors of Making A Killing: HMOs and the Threat To Your Health

published on the Internet the first interactive, virtual book that allows the

public to read, at no cost, the text of the authors’ muckraking commercial trade

publication and submit proposed additions about their own personal travails.

The site dedicated to the book is http://www.makingakilling.org Making A Killing

was published in October by Common Courage Press and hailed by Publisher’s

Weekly on November 22nd as " one of the most powerful indictments to date of the

managed care industry, this scathing exposé…is must reading for anyone concerned

with the health of the U.S. medical system. " The trade book retails for $16.95

and is available in book stores, on amazon.com, or at commoncouragepress.com.

" Sunshine is the anti-dote to HMO abuse and our indictment of corporate

medicine’s offenses should not end with an arbitrary publication date, " said

Court, co-author of Making A Killing and advocacy director at the

non-profit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. " The Internet site will

allow readers to create a living history of HMO abuses and, hopefully, a

chronicle of how HMOs were forced to change their behavior. The epidemic nature

of HMO medicine’s offenses demands and always-open, ever-vigilant registry of

corporate secrets, scandals and reformation. This is low-cost, high-tech

democratic action encouraged by a publisher that cares about justice. "

Patients, doctors, nurses and whistleblowers with pertinent information to add

will be able to submit suggested additions to the book at

http://www.makingakilling.org. The authors will examine the documentation

provided by contributors and decide which additions to the text will be made

based on whether the submissions:

1)are credible

2)provide a new dimension to the issues already raised

3)document systemic abuses not yet touched upon.

The HMOs and managed care corporations named in the submissions will be

approached for comment before a selected passage is added, and HMO responses

will be included. Reader-amended text will be published in future printings of

the trade publication.

" If civil society is to reassert itself over corporate medicine’s trespasses, it

needs a beacon, " said , co-author and Senior Fellow at the

Massachusetts-based Institute for A Civil Society.

" http://www.makingakilling.org is the place where civil society’s demands can be

heard. "

The impact of the move on book sales is unknown. It could help sell books by

creating additional exposure or slow them because the text is available for

free. Books posted on the Internet currently are typically not commercial trade

publications, but very low cost books, which are often self-published.

" It’s a gamble from a business perspective, " said Greg Bates, president of

Common Courage Press. " Making A Killing raises issues that are about more than

money. They are about life and death. This book is too important not to post on

the Internet as a rallying point for patients, doctors, nurses and

whistleblowers. We are hoping those who find the site will also want a copy of

the book on their shelves.”

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R. - Euless, Texas

A Tick Made Me Sick

A TIICS Is Keeping Me That Way

(TIICS = The Insurance Industry Captive

Specialists)http://www.angelfire.com/biz/romarkaraoke/james.html

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