Healthcare Systems: Care, Cost, and Access
How health care is paid for, delivered, and rationed, in the United States and around the world: what every health system does and the four ways countries build one; where America's $5.3 trillion goes and why it pays the most; primary care, hospitals and emergency rooms, mental health and addiction, and long-term care; the doctors, nurses, and aides; insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and the marketplaces; how providers are paid; prices, bills, and market power; how every system rations care; quality, safety, and who goes without; the systems of England, Canada, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Japan, and of China, India, and the poorer world; and the choices for reform. Brought to October: the 2025 budget law's Medicaid cuts and work requirements, the marketplaces after their extra subsidies expired, England's waiting lists and the abolition of NHS England, Germany's savings law, the return of measles, and the polls before the November 3 midterms. One patient's heart attack runs through the course, from the ambulance to the last bill and into four other countries and India. Where the field argues, from Medicare Advantage to single payer, each side makes its case before the evidence. Opens with Key Numbers, a Who's Who, and a list of terms. Education, not medical, legal, or financial advice, and it says so.** **