ANNOUNCING John Geyman's new book was released in February, 2024

CORPORATE POWER and OLIGARCHY
How Our Democracy Can Prevail Over Authoritarianism and Fascism

Today’s national politics are highly polarized, with one of our two major political parties dysfunctional with internal conflicts and public confidence in government and the Supreme Court in decline. The electorate has become increasingly diverse, with a white supremacy movement inciting further division and hate crimes across the country while some on the right still believe Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

The democratic process has been damaged over many years by the growing power of corporate money in the election process. Supreme Court rulings have allowed unfettered amounts of political donations to politicians under the guise of ‘free speech’ so campaign money from billionaires now plays a major role in who gets elected. Trends over the last 40 plus years include rising income and wealth inequities, decline of the middle class, and growth of social media with spread of disinformation.

This book offers a unique perspective on how oligarchy (power invested in a few or a dominant class) has enveloped our government and country; how oligarchs defend their power as it grows; how wealth influences elections in their favor; and how citizens, in addition to voting in the 2024 elections, can support steps to strengthen our democracy so that we can hold together as one country for the common good.

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Dr. John Geyman is more than a master of explaining, with clear, graphic and documented reportage, how corporate greed and power devastate lives and livelihoods. He knows wherein lies the mechanisms of corrupt power and how “We the People” can unravel its chains and mounting perils. It’s called resurgent democracy, nourished by the reality that only the people have the votes, not the corporations, to work their will toward a just, safer society. His books, especially this one, speak to everybody and make a great gift if you’re looking for action leading to change. Should you wish to become a “change agent” consider this one galvanizing handbook in your toolkit.

—Ralph Nader, activist, founder of Public Citizen and the Center for Study of
Responsive Law, and author of Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than You Think

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Buy a Copy of Corporate Power and Oligarchy

Other Publications

by John Geyman, M.D.

Are We The UNITED States of America?
Can We Hold Together As One Country?

Most of us still hold to the belief that we are united by the credos of American democracy. That supposed democracy, however, is under attack from within. An economic ideology of unregulated corporations, privatization of public programs, and a limited role of government, has divided us along lines of income and wealth. Decline of the middle class has become associated with increasing inequality and continued systemic racism. As the U. S. electorate becomes more diverse, white nationalism has driven a wedge into our unity. We have seen an alarming increase in the number of hate groups and violence across the country. Our two major political parties have become more divided than ever as large groups on the right still buy into Trump’s Big Lie, without any evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Later chapters deal with approaches to rebuild unity and sense of community through rekindling traditional American values, confronting the excesses of Wall Street and oligarchy, and a larger role of responsive government for the common good. - Buy this book on Amazon Or from IndieBound

If there was ever a book you want to hug and read for clearly and graphically focusing your attention on the corporatist forces disintegrating our political, economic and cultural institutions for this amassing of profits-at-any-cost, this short, concise ARE WE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? CAN WE HOLD TOGETHER AS ONE COUNTRY? is right now the number one choice.

This is that rare book of universal appeal and action to give to your local library and discuss at your local book club or neighborhood gathering.

—Ralph Nader, activist, founder of Public Citizen and the Center for Study of Responsive Law,
and author of Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than You Think

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This book describes the evolution of U. S. health care since the 1960s as seen and lived by one family physician. After 7 years in medical school and graduate training, Dr. Geyman’s experience includes 13 years in rural practice, 21 years in teaching, 14 years as chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington, and 30 years of editing medical journals, together with research and publishing in health care. Come along with him to see how medical records evolved from 3x5 cards in the 1960s to electronic medical records today, how solo and small group practice have almost disappeared as corporate medicine has become the rule, and how the traditional service ethic of health care has largely given way to a profit-seeking business ‘ethic.’ Here you will see how health care has become unaffordable for much of our population, how Medicare and Medicare have been compromised through privatization, how the quality of health care leaves much to be desired, and how our health care system has become chaotic. Dr. Geyman describes a fix for these problems that can bring equity and access to health care for all Americans.

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The rise of an enormous medical-industrial complex (MIC) over the last 60 years in the United States has brought wealth to ever-larger corporations, their shareholders and CEOs at the expense of most Americans who struggle gaining access to affordable health care. Despite its might on Wall Street, the MIC has left our country poorly prepared to meet the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, together with its resultant economic downturn. Add the third simultaneous challenge -systemic racism, made obvious by the inequities of disproportionate numbers of COVID-19 deaths among minorities. This book describes how the status quo that puts profits ahead of care for patients and families is untenable. It describes three alternative approaches to health care reform, and shows what a 'new normal' can and should look like based on evidence and values of equity and service instead of profiteering, corruption and fraud. This will be an ultimate battle royal between corporate America and Main Street that we can't afford to lose.

Winner of the 2021 Silver Non-Fiction Book Awad

The best guide to the corporate driven corruption that has overtaken health care, and how the search for profit elbowed aside medical ethics and the best traditions of the medical profession. —David Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., general internists, health policy experts, and Distinguished Professors of Public Health at City University of New York

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Profiteering, corruption and fraud are emblematic of our profit-driven, corporatized marketplace and so-called health care system. The three bleed into each other in an entangled way, and they are even increasing. We have to ask and answer: who is the health care system for— profits for health care corporations, their shareholders, and Wall Street traders and investors? for the corrupt and fraudulent scammers? or for patients, their families, and taxpayers? The urgent need for health care reform is at an all-time high as the U. S. struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession certain to follow. We are far behind other advanced nations with one or another system of universal coverage. Incremental attempts to reform U. S. health care have failed for many years. Our broken system is no longer affordable for patients, families, and taxpayers. This book updates where we are with the untenable status quo and compares three major alternatives for reform—building on the ACA, the public option, and Medicare for All.

Recipient of a Gold Award from the Nonfiction Authors Association

Geyman reveals in vivid detail the corruption that’s hollowing out our health care system, and what’s needed to stop it. A must read for anyone seeking to diagnose and treat what’s wrong with health care. —David Himmelstein, M.D. and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., general internists, health policy experts, and distinguished professors of public health at the City University of New York. Medicine for profit instead of public service infects America with rising costs, declining quality of care and worsening inequality of access to healthcare even with the Affordable Care Act. As a prominent medical school professor after a career as a family physician, John Geyman  has diagnosed what ails our non-system sick-care system. Geyman also prescribes a cure with lower costs and better care — if we will just follow the doctor’s orders. — David Cay Johnston, author of The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use “Plain English” to Rob You Blind

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There is a looming crisis in our nation’s capacity to provide long-term care. The needs keep increasing while more and more of our aging seniors and large numbers of disabled can no longer gain access to affordable care. The markers are serious—more than one-half of Americans age 65 and older are expected to need help with activities of daily living, whether in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or at home; U. S. seniors are projected to outnumber children under 18 by 2035; dementia increases as our population ages, expected to involve almost 40 percent of people over age 85; one in four Americans has a major disability; and there is a growing shortage of caregivers. Regardless of our age and current circumstances, all of us will face the need for long-term care for a parent, another family member, or ourselves down the road. When that time comes, it is an open question whether most of us will be able to gain access to personal, affordable long-term care when we need it. This book examines the many issues involved in charting a way toward a system of universal coverage that will fix the challenge of long-term care.

Announcing the Pinnacle Book Award 2019: Best Book in the Category of HEALTH CARE REFORM

“Dr. Geyman has written another outstanding book that pulls the curtain back for all to see how dysfunctional our health care system has become. This book in particular is timely and essential reading. Long-term care in the United States is an issue largely ignored by the media and policymakers, but it is one that ultimately touches every family. It is beyond absurd that millions of Americans, the elderly in particular, have to spend down to poverty before they can get the care they need. Dr. Geyman explains how we got in such a mess and what we can do about it.” —Wendell Potter, founder of Tarbell and author of Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans.

A Series of Common Sense Pamphlets

This series of pamphlets follows Thomas Paine’s classic Common Sense pamphlet based on simple facts, plain arguments and
common sense about Medicare for All.

Purchase these pamphlets through Amazon

2019

U. S. health care remains in crisis despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. The markers are serious—29 million still uninsured, 85 million underinsured, soaring costs of health care with no containment in sight, and growing numbers of people forgoing medical care and dying preventable deaths. After failing to repeal the ACA, the Trump administration and GOP have sabotaged it in many ways, such as by allowing insurers to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Private health insurers are ripping us off by administrative overhead and profits six or more times the overhead of not-for-profit public Medicare. Incremental approaches toward health care reform will fail. We need real Medicare for All with comprehensive benefits for all U. S. residents. We can afford it through savings of private insurer costs, negotiated drug prices, and progressive taxes whereby 95 percent of Americans will pay less than they do now for insurance and health care. This book charts the way to real reform based on Democratic control of the House and 70 percent of Americans supporting Medicare for All.

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Chaos now reigns throughout our increasingly fragmented, dysfunctional, and unfair health care system. This book intends to make sense out of this chaos with four goals: (1) to describe what TrumpCare is; (2) to show how it is failing patients, families, taxpayers, and the nation; (3) to describe the growing crisis in health care in this country; and (4) to compare the only two real alternatives before us—continuance of TrumpCare or moving to single-payer Medicare for All This book describes how Americans can gain universal access to affordable health care, with higher quality and less bureaucracy, paying less than we do now.

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2017

The problems of U.S. health care are of intense public interest today. The debate over where to go next to rein in costs and improve access to quality health care has become bitterly partisan, with distorted rhetoric largely uninformed by history, evidence, or health policy science. Based on present trends, our expensive dysfunctional system threatens patients, families, the government, and taxpayers with future bankruptcy. This book takes a 60-year view of our health care system, from 1956 to 2016, from the perspective of a family physician who has lived through these years as a practitioner in two rural communities, a professor and administrator of family medicine in medical schools, a journal editor for 30 years, and a researcher and writer on health care for more than four decades. This is an objective, non-partisan look at the major trends changing U. S. health care over these years, ranging from increasing technology and uncontrollable costs to depersonalization and changing ethics in medicine and health care. This book also compares the three basic alternatives for health care reform currently being debated.

John's 2017 book, Crisis in U.S. Health Care: Corporate Power vs. the Common Good has won the IBPA Benjamin Franklin silver award.

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