In The Truth About Obamacare, Sally C. Pipes examines the details of the new health care law and tries to show what its implementation will mean for individuals, doctors, and the country. She argues that, contrary to supporters’ promises, the new program will make health care more expensive, limit options, lead to deteriorating medical care, and weaken America’s already frail economy.

Pipes is the president of the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco. In the debate over health care, she has definitely chosen her side, championing market-based reforms such as allowing the interstate purchase of health insurance and revising the tax code to encourage individually-purchased, instead of employer-provided, insurance. But Pipes is no ranting demagogue. She bases her arguments on the language of the bill and lots of research rather than emotional rhetoric.

Pipes's prognosis of health care under the new rules is grim. However, she closes the book with an optimistic section on alternate proposals for solving America's health care problems. She argues for repealing the recently-enacted statute and then focusing federal policy on encouraging increased individual purchase of health insurance, expanding Health Savings Accounts, and establishing a voucher system for the uninsured who cannot afford insurance and who do not already qualify for existing government programs.

The book is aimed at a general audience and, although dependent on some pretty dry statistics and detailed research, is readable and accessible. Those opposed to the new health care laws will definitely want to bone up on the subject with Pipes’s book. Proponents also may want to read the book to better understand some of the rational arguments against the new system. ( )