The Brownlee Correspondence Introduction to Brownlee 1, 2 & 3
Shannon Brownlee, currently a visiting scholar at The National Institutes of Health, has written extensively about health care and, among other things, proposals to curtail health care costs and expand availability. Her work has appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Slate, Time, Discover, BusinessWeek, Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wilson Quarterly. Her awards include the 2004 AHCJ Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting, the National Association of Science Writers Science-in-Society Award, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. Her work has been featured in The Real State of the Union, a collection of the best stories from The Atlantic Monthly’s “Real State of the Union” series, and in The New Science Journalists, a collection of the best science writing edited by Ted Anton and Rick McCourt. She holds a master’s degree in biology from the University of California. One of her primary concerns is alleged overtreatment. She originally articulated her belief that health care costs are artificially inflated in an article in The Atlantic Monthly. (Brownlee, Shannon. "The Overtreated American." The Atlantic Monthly 1 Feb. 2003. Print.) She has subsequently elaborated on her concern about overtreatment in her first book. (Brownlee, Shannon. Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker & Poorer. Washington, D.C.: Bloomsbury USA, New America Foundation, 2007. Print.) I responded to her February, 2003 article in The Atlantic Monthly to clarify some of the legal principles of insurance law as it applies to health care and to opine on why I believe the cost of health benefit coverage is so prohibitive. I have uploaded that document as Brownlee 1. She responded with questions and concerns about my approach. I have uploaded that document as Brownlee 2. I responded to her in a document I have uploaded as Brownlee 3. These 3 documents provide a background of the principles of health insurance. They will give the reader a reasonable, 30,000 foot understanding of the roots of the problem. Michael D. Scott, Esq. July 29, 2009