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A Spirit of Charity
Paperback - $16.95 USD Hardcover - $26.95 USD Quantity
Silver Medal, IPPY Awards, 2017
Current Events (Social Issues/Humanitarian)
Silver Winner, IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, 2017
Political & Current Events
"[Mike King's] decades of experience as an Atlanta-based journalist covering health care in the South have versed him well in the doublespeak of health care financing for America's poor. … his outrage on behalf of our continuously threatened public hospitals should be immensely gratifying to all of their fans."
- The New York Times
"In the spirit of investigative journalism, this assessment of public hospitals paints a grim picture of health care for the poor in America. ... a searing and sobering indictment of the public health care system that highlights the inequality of treatment."
"This fascinating work of medical history is refreshing and notable for its treatment of race as a critical part of the healthcare debate."
- Foreword Clarion Reviews
"Presented as the history of five large public hospitals in the United States, this book provides an interesting insight into the wider American healthcare system and the politics, events and ideologies that have shaped it from the late 19th century to the present day."
- The Pharmaceutical Journal
"Through stories of achievements, challenges and calamities at five large public hospitals in the U.S., Mike King shows that medical excellence resides where few people expect to find it – and how those centers are threatened by misplaced public priorities and political mythologies."
- Hank Klibanoff, coauthor, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in history
"Why is the United States the exception among our peer-nations when it comes to universal coverage? What role do public hospitals play both in protecting the vulnerable and allowing us to ignore the sources of their vulnerability? Can or should we hope for a day when the public hospital is no more? A Spirit of Charity has many of the answers to these vital questions."
- From the Foreword by Arthur L. Caplan, PhD; Founding Director, Division of Medical Ethics; Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor, New York University Langone Medical Center
Most Americans have historically viewed the nation's great public hospitals as refuges of last resort for poor and uninsured people. But these iconic institutions have also served as a safety valve for the nation's highly profitable medical industrial complex.
They are a key to understanding the evolution of America's $3 trillion health care system, not just for the poor, but the affluent as well, argues veteran journalist Mike King.
Through an examination of their unique history and an incisive analysis of policy successes and failures, A Spirit of Charity reveals the remarkable story of why public hospitals matter and why they should play a more prominent role in our public policy discussions.