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The investigative reporting team of Don Bartlett and Jim Steele has been looking under the hood of issues vital to Americans since 1971. One of these has been health care. Their 2004 book, [amazon-product text=”Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business–and Bad Medicine” type=”text”]0767910753[/amazon-product], examined How Health Care in America Became Big Business — and Bad Medicine, as the subtitle of the book goes. One recommendation they made in the book was for a new independent independent agency, to manage health care. [amazon-product align=”left”]0767910753[/amazon-product]The idea of a Federal Reserve for health care is gaining some currency now in the Obama administration. Bartlett and Steele called their proposed agency the U.S. Council on Health Care, or USCHC.
Donald Bartlett and Jim Steele have won numerous awards for journalism, inlcuding the George Polk Award and 2 Pulitzer Prizes. The Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University established the Barlett and Steele Awards in 2007 in recognition of their contribution to investigative reporting and to foster in-depth journalism by the media. Given annually, the first-place prize is $5,000 with a runner-up prize of $2,000.