A review by arp9081
The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town by Brian Alexander

4.0

If there was a 4.5-star option, this book would definitely be it. Brian Alexander takes us to a small town in Ohio and explores its relationship with healthcare and the medical industry. The anecdotes of impoverished residents paired with academic research paints an image that we are all too well accustomed to. The United States' healthcare system is failing, because it is not a system. It's an amalgamation of for-profit enterprises trying to extract as much money from the population as possible. The epilogue had to address the elephant in the room that was the covid-19 pandemic. I wish there would be more follow up on the impact of the pandemic on small, independent hospitals. But the book was published in 2021 so not much can be blamed on the author.

An excellent resource for anybody that wants to dive into the failings of healthcare in the U.S. for academics and casual readers.