Life for Health: How to solve chronic disease and increase healthspan using life insurance

— —

Jeremy Shane

Life for Health

How to solve chronic disease and increase healthspan using life insurance

Jeremy Shane

$42.95 $36.71

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Intellectual Perspective Press
16 September 2025

Insurance & actuarial studies; Coping with old age; Diets & dieting

Life for Health is a bold reimagining of how we fight chronic disease.

In 1960, Americans could live to 70 and expect to spend about seven years in ill health. Today, Americans can live a decade longer but spend more than twice as much time in ill health. More years alive but fewer years in good health; it's hardly a bargain.

The biggest driver of shrinking healthspans is chronic disease, led by metabolic issues like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Most disability and cost results from multimorbidity, when a person develops three or more conditions. It's the #1 driver of disability and cost, and not just in a person's retirement. Multimorbidity is starting earlier.

Why? For decades, we've asked one health system to do two wildly different jobs, to solve short-term and emergency issues, along with decades long, complex, ones. It's impossible for one system to do both. Chronic disease requires a completely different approach, scientifically and financially. Our failure to come to grips with this reality is at the heart of skyrocketing spending and increasing cancer and dementia rates.

The solution? A second system for chronic disease based on life insurance, instead of health insurance.

Part manifesto, part blueprint, Life for Health exposes the design flaws that keep Americans sick and how to fix them. It describes a new system to get

Americans and their doctors working together to reverse and prevent disease, and live healthier for longer. Health insurance can continue, just reduced in size to cover routine illnesses and emergencies, while life insurance creates the right long-term alignment, keeping everyone in the system focused on reversing disease, maintaining good health longer, and sharing in the value created.

Unlike other big health care changes that have taken years of political in-fighting, this one is doable within existing laws. Life for Health shows how, blending insight and common sense to offer a truly revolutionary path forward.

At stake for Americans is a decade more of good health, and trillions of dollars in new wealth.

By: Jeremy Shane
Imprint: Intellectual Perspective Press
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 386g
ISBN: 9781908770844
ISBN 10: 1908770848
Pages: 332
Publication Date: 16 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Jeremy Shane is an accomplished entrepreneur and health care thinker, having co-founded and led successful enterprises in health, education, and energy. Jeremy's interest in health care reform began as a policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Justice. During the aughts, he was part of the founding team of HealthCentral, a unique collection of online health communities to help people overcome chronic and life-threatening disease. Later on, Jeremy helped to educate clinicians, building graduate degree programs for physical therapists and nurse practitioners. He has written about new ways to improve pricing of breakthrough drugs like GLP-1s and cell and gene therapies, and is a non-resident fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center of Health Policy and Economics.

Reviews for Life for Health: How to solve chronic disease and increase healthspan using life insurance

""Life for Health is one of those books that will forever change how you think about health care. It shows us how to stop ""sick care"" and create a system that actually prevents disease and rewards Americans and their doctors for getting and staying healthy."" - Dr. John Whyte, Chief Executive Officer, American Medical Association ""Brilliant, original, and practical. After reading Life for Health, it will seem obvious: of course we should use long-term arrangements like life insurance to stop long-term threats like chronic disease and cancer, ideally before they even start."" - Dr. Arza Raza, Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center ""What we Americans call 'health insurance' is really 'medical expense insurance.' Jeremy Shane proposes a new paradigm that really is health insurance. It requires remaking who pays for what and when. Shane lays out how we could change all that and have insurance that has more to do with our health than our medical expenses."" - Hanns Kuttner, health policy expert, former Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute