This image is the cover for the book Fresh Medicine

Fresh Medicine

An authoritative, engaging, and nonpartisan look at what is wrong with American health care and how we can fix it—“told with skill and grace” (Jon Meacham, author of American Lion).

Former Governor of Tennessee and CEO of HealthAmerica Corporation, Phil Bredesen “knows the American health care system inside and out. He knows both the theory and, more importantly, how things really work.” In Fresh Medicine, he analyses the current state of American Health Care, beginning with a clear-eyed critique of the Affordable Care Act (Bill Frist, M.D., former Senate majority leader).

According to Bresden, the Obama Administration ushered million more people into a broken system while doing little to address the underlying problems. Looking back over the past century, Bresden explains how that system developed from local doctors making house calls to today’s sprawling insurance model. What began as an insurance system to cover hospitalization has expanded to cover drugs, doctor visits, and the treatment of chronic disease. American health care, Bredesen asserts, needs to be reset on a new foundation. In Fresh Medicine, he harnesses thirty years of experience to offer a new solution.

Phil Bredesen

Philip Bredesen is the Democratic governor of Tennessee. Before being elected governor in 2002, and reelected in 2006, he was mayor of Nashville, and prior to that the founder and CEO of HealthAmerica Corporation, a public managed-care company. Bredesen graduated from Harvard in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in physics. This is his first book

Atlantic Monthly Press