An Introduction to the U.S. Health Care System

"Dr. Jonas has been a voice in the wilderness preaching sense about both health and health services for years. He clearly identifies the problems and issues facing the system and its beneficiaries, based upon the evidence he has carefully marshaled for the reader...and he challenges the reader to make sense out of the facts, understanding the evidence within a historical and international context, and come up with judgments on needed changes and how to go about making them, starting with the facts which he so generously provides you."--From the Foreword by Anthony R. Kovner, PhD Professor of Health Policy and Management New York University

This bestselling text is a concise and balanced classic presenting the domestic health care system. It explains the five major components of the U.S. health care system:

1. health care institutions (hospitals and nursing homes)
2. health care personnel (physicians, nurses, and others)
3. financing mechanisms
4. research and educational institutions that produce biomedical knowledge and health personnel
5. firms producing "health commodities" (such as pharmaceutical drugs and hospital equipment).