About this item
A New York Times bestsellerA Washington Post Notable Book of the Year At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations.
About the Author
Dr. Elisabeth L. Rosenthal, was appointed editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News in 2016, after more than 2 decades with the New York Times. She received a B.S. degree in biology from Stanford University, an M.A. degree in English literature from Cambridge University, and an M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School.
Rosenthal began her Times career as a reporter in the science department, and went on to cover the health and hospitals beat on the metro desk. In 2008, after a stint in Beijing and another in Rome, she returned to the U.S. as a New York-based Times senior writer covering environmental issues.
Rosenthal went back to healthcare writing after being asked to cover the Affordable Care Act during the 2012 election campaign. Libby's two-year-long New York Times series "Paying Till it Hurts" (2013-14) won many prizes for both health reporting and its creative use of digital tools. "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take it Back," her first book, grew out of her desire to help patients understand and tackle the high cost of U.S. medicine.
Kaiser Health News is an independent, non-profit, newsroom based in D.C. focusing on health and health policy. Its stories appear in a wide range of media partners from the New York Times and the Washington Post to NPR and the Daily Beast. (It is not related to Kaiser Permanente or the Kaiser Health System.)
