Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis―-and the People Who Pay the Price – An Illuminating Chronicle of Unraveling Medical Care and

Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis―-and the People Who Pay the Price – An Illuminating Chronicle of Unraveling Medical Care and

America's health care system is unraveling, with millions of hard-working people unable to pay for prescription drugs and regular checkups, let alone hospital visits. Jonathan Cohn traveled across the United States—the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee its citizens access to medical care—to investigate why this crisis is happening and to see firsthand its impact on ordinary Americans. Passionate, powerful, illuminating, and often devastating, Sick chronicles the decline of America's health care system, and lays bare the consequences any one of us could suffer if we don't replace it. “Cohn’s book will infuriate you enough to make you want to scream at every member of Congress, ‘Read this!’” - David K. Shipler, author of The Working Poor “A terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system.” - Paul Krugman, The New York Times “No one has thought harder about our heath care system than Jonathan Cohn.” - E.J. Dionne, Jr., syndicated columnist and author of Why Americans Hate Politics “Jonathan Cohn’s Sick is an eye-opening work on healthcare in America told through the stories of those in need.” - Jerome Groopman, author of The Anatomy of Hope “This is a stunningly important book. Jonathan Cohn lays bare the tragedy of our health care system.” - Atul Gawande, author of Complications “An 80-year chronology of repeated market failure. . . . Read it and weep.” - Slate “In Sick, Jonathan Cohn . . . has written a call-to-arms for a complete transformation of American medicine.” - Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here Sick is one of those rare books that combines the personal with the sharply analytical. - Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights America's health care system is unraveling, with millions of hard-working people unable to pay for prescription drugs and regular checkups, let alone hospital visits. Jonathan Cohn traveled across the United States—the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee its citizens access to medical care—to investigate why this crisis is happening and to see firsthand its impact on ordinary Americans. Passionate, powerful, illuminating, and often devastating, Sick chronicles the decline of America's health care system, and lays bare the consequences any one of us could suffer if we don't replace it. Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic , where he has written about national politics and its impact on American communities for the past decade. He is also a contributing editor at The American Prospect and a senior fellow at the think tank Demos. Cohn, who has been a media fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation, has written for The New York Times , The Washington Post , Mother Jones , Rolling Stone , Slate , and The Washington Monthly . A graduate of Harvard, he lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife and two children. Sick The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price By Jonathan Cohn HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2008 Jonathan Cohn All right reserved. ISBN: 9780060580469 Chapter One Gilbertsville New York's Leatherstocking Country sits at the northern foothills of the Catskill Mountains, a few hours' drive from Manhattan. The name is a reference to the leggings that colonial settlers wore during the 1700s, but it was James Fenimore Cooper who immortalized the region in the early 1800s, when he used it as the setting for his five books about the frontier hero Natty Bumppo, a collection that later became known as the Leatherstocking Tales. To see the area today is to glimpse a landscape remarkably like the one that first captured Cooper's imagination: a "succession of hills and dales" rolling through the countryside; "beautiful and thriving villages" nestled in the "narrow, rich, and cultivated" valleys, with only the occasional gas station and roadside pizza shack to pierce the "romantic and picturesque character." For the people who live in Leatherstocking Country now, this largely unmolested geography provides precious insulation from the rest of New York—even, it would seem, from modernity itself. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the village of Gilbertsville. Gilbertsville is a two-hour drive from Syracuse, the closest city with a major airport, and the last part of the journey takes place along a winding road, more than 1,000 feet up in the hills. Gilbertsville becomes visible only after the final turn, when the road descends into a valley, depositing drivers near the entrance to Major's Inn—a Tudor-style building that hosts such events as the annual Gilbertsville Quilting Fair. Here Gilbertsville's commercial district begins and nearly ends, with a small grocery store, a quilt shop, and a few offices operating out of more Tudor-style storefronts that line one side of the street. The buildings look almost precisely as they did when they were built in the 1890s, after a fire destroyed the old