Do HMOs provide good health care while keeping costs down? Or is their dominance a major threat to American health, safety, and pocketbooks?In Making a Killing, you’ll meet some of the victims trapped in corporate medicine’s stark financial calculus: the less you care, the more you profit. – Diagnosed with stomach cancer but unable to get HMO approval for recommended treatment, David Goodrich finally started therapy anyway. But by then the cancer had spread to his liver. He died leaving his wife Teresa, a kindergarten teacher, with $750,000 in medical bills his insurer refused to pay. – Five-month-old Chad Aitken was given vaccine shots which caused a reaction. When his mother called their HMO doctor for assistance, she was told, incorrectly, that her insurance had lapsed, and was refused care. Chad died.

Americans are angry – and ready to take back control of their health. In Making a Killing, consumer activists Jamie Court and Frank Smith indict the corrupt world of managed care, and provide a Self-Defense Kit for overcoming HMO stonewalling techniques and getting the care you deserve. Included is a mail-in postcard for readers to vote on what kind of health care system they think is right for the country. The verdict count will be maintained on the Internet.