A review by rachelwalexander
The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town by Brian Alexander

5.0

This is a masterful piece of reporting on the state of American health care and the American economy, told through several years at one rural Ohio hospital. Brian Alexander shifts effortlessly between the micro - scenes in the ER and hospital boardroom, and the macro - the financial and policy landscape that's led community hospitals to be both a last line of defense and an increasingly unviable business. It's hard to write about dense policy and large forces in American society in a way that's clear and gripping, but Alexander does both, without ever losing sight of the humans at the center of the story.