Updated to reflect recent developments in health care, Best Care Anywhere, Second Edition, explains how the quality revolution at the nation’s veterans hospitals can help us reform the U.S. health care system as a whole. The book also offers a realistic plan for creating a civilian version of the VA—a truly public option offering high-quality health care and substantial cost savings.

Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is an award-winning journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Monthly. His most recent book, The Next Progressive Era: A Blueprint for Broad Prosperity was co-authored with Ray Boshara (PoliPointPress, 2009).

He is a frequent public speaker, including addresses to the National War College, the Department of Health and Human Services, The VA, PopTech, and Fortune Magazine’s annual “Brainstorm” conference. He is also frequently interviewed by both foreign and domestic media, including National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel, and many others. Formerly a senior writer and deputy assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report, he has won numerous awards for his business and financial writing, including UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, and the top prize for investigative journalism from Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Praise for the First Edition
“In this important book, Phillip Longman describes the turnaround of the VA healthcare system—now widely recognized as leading the nation in terms of both quality and costs—and offers insights that will be useful to patients and policy makers alike.”
—DR. ELLIOTT S. FISHER, Dartmouth Medical School

“The improvement of the VA healthcare system in the past decade is one of the most impressive stories of large-scale change—and at the leadership thereof—in modern times. Students of quality improvement will find lesson after lesson in this important case study.”
—DONALD BERWICK, MD, MPP, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Professor, Harvard School of Public Health

“Phillip Longman has uncovered the biggest untold medical story of the last decade . . . It’s a story that will fundamentally alter the biggest medical issue of the coming decade: the drive for universal health care.”
—PAUL GLASTRIS, The Washington Monthly

“Longman’s book is a beacon of hope.”
—THEODORE MARMOR, Health Affairs

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“Among the most important social policy books published in the last decade.”
—Ezra Klein, The Washington Post

LEARNING FROM THE VA IN THE FACE OF HEALTH CARE REFORM
PoliPointPress Releases Second Edition of Bestselling Book, BEST CARE ANYWHERE

Sausalito, CA—Mention the Veterans Administra¬tion (VA), and most people imagine a system of dangerous, dirty and scandal-ridden hospitals. Instead, because of an ongoing quality revolution in the nation’s veterans hospitals, they now offer what is demon¬strably the highest quality care in America, and provide deep les¬sons for reforming the U.S. health care system as a whole.

BEST CARE ANYWHERE: Why VA Health Care is Better Than Yours, by Phil Longman, an award-winning journalist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, tells the compelling story of how and why the VA became the benchmark for quality medicine in the United States. Now in it’s second edition, Best Care Anywhere is particularly timely with the passing of health care reform in America, which will necessarily shift focus to the practice of medicine itself. The VA, by making extensive use of electronic medi¬cal records and evidence-based medicine, has devel¬oped a model of 21st century health care that boosts safety, cost effectiveness, and patient satisfaction.

Additional information new to Best Care Anywhere, Second Edition, includes:

• Discussion of vast changes in health care politics since 2007, and how the VA model of care fits in.

• New insights on how the VA model will shape 21st century health care

• How Bush administration policies undermined many successful aspects of VA health care, and how the Obama administration is beginning to put mat¬ter right for our wounded warriors.

• Updated coverage of federal information technology initiatives in health care, and the lessons provided by the VA’s “open source” software development.

• New information on the continuing consequences of exposure to Agent Orange, and its deeper impli¬cations for rethinking who should have access to VA care.

• A proposal for rolling out a new civilian version of the VA that now has gained political viability in light of the overall failure of other approaches to health care reform. A civilian VA is a true “public option” in health care for which Progressives and other Americans must rally.

By using real world examples and drawing on scientific research, Best Care Anywhere offers readers powerful new ways of thinking about health care. The happy message of this book is that a proven solution that could save lives is on hand.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is an award-winning journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Monthly. His most recent book, The Next Progressive Era: A Blueprint for Broad Prosperity was co-authored with Ray Boshara (PoliPointPress, 2009).

He is a frequent public speaker, including addresses to the National War College, the Department of Health and Human Services, The VA, PopTech, and Fortune Magazine’s annual “Brainstorm” conference. He is also frequently interviewed by both foreign and domestic media, including National Public Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel, and many others. Formerly a senior writer and deputy assistant managing editor at U.S. News & World Report, he has won numerous awards for his business and financial writing, including UCLA’s Gerald Loeb Award, and the top prize for investigative journalism from Investigative Reporters and Editors.

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BEST CARE ANYWHERE: Why VA Health Care Is Better Than Yours
By Phillip Longman
$15.95, PoliPointPress, April 6, 2010, Trade Paper
ISBN: 978-0-9824171-5-7, 175 pages, 5.5” x 8.5”
For more information, go to www.p3books.com/bestcareanywhere/

For press inquiries, please contact Darcy Cohan: 415-339-4111 or darcycohan@p3books.com