"This book recasts the story of the health care system by emphasizing the economic and social importance of hospitals in American communities. While hospitals have become vital economic anchors in cities across the country, the spending that supports them has constrained possibilities for comprehensive health care reform"--

Guian A. McKee is Associate Professor of Presidential Studies, Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, and author of The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia.