“This thorough diagnosis of our health care system's problems reinforces my conclusion thirty years ago that David Mechanic is one of this nation's most insightful observers of health and health care.”
—Kenneth E. Warner, Ph.D., Dean, School of Public Health, University of Michigan

"Mechanic provides an insightful understanding of the complexity of our health care system and offers some measured approaches for effective change. Policy-makers and practitioners alike would do well to heed his advice."
—Stephen M. Shortell, Ph.D., MPH, Dean, School of Public Health, UC-Berkeley and Blue Cross of California Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management

"An important read for lay persons, clinicians, and policy makers interested in a comprehensive, non-partisan assessment of the problems with our health care system and a discussion of feasible changes that could dramatically improve the quality and efficiency of health care in the U.S."
—Paul D. Cleary, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School

Bringing decades of experience as an active health policy participant, researcher, teacher, and consultant to the public and private sectors, David Mechanic examines the strengths and weaknesses of health care in the United States. He explains how it has evolved in ways that favor economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. Yet, he also acknowledges that railing against these influences can achieve only so much. Instead, Mechanic suggests changes that may make it possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well-functioning system that better serves the entire population.

David Mechanic is director of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University and the national program director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research.  He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and to the Institute of Medicine.