With private health insurance costs averaging over $300 per month, per person - and with 36 million Americans lacking coverage of any sort - it is easy to understand why health care has captured the public imagination as the domestic policy issue of the 1990s. Americans spend well over $800 billion a year on health care, yet we are neglecting basic medical attention - like shots and checkups - for our neediest citizens, including over 8 million children. The American health care "system," if we can call it that, is a costly, bewildering array of acronyms, institutions, people, and procedures that will probably become even more confusing before it gains some clarity. Curing the Crisis is the book to read to get a brief but comprehensive picture of the issues - without wading through a lot of technical jargon. In a short, readable, and objective presentation, Curing the Crisis offers insight into the following questions: What has happened to the availability and cost of health care in recent years, and what are current trends? What are the problems with our current health care system, and why do so many Americans lack health insurance despite our spending more per person on health care than any other country? What major proposals for health care reform aim at making sure everyone is covered, and what are the pros and cons of each? What can we learn from health care systems in Canada, Great Britain, and Germany? What are the major proposals for reducing the rate of cost inflation in health care, and how are medical professionals and economists reacting to such plans? Without advocating any single plan, the author - a scholar and policy specialist - boldly outlines the features he considers essential to a medically, financially, and politically effective cure to the health care system's ailments. In addition to synthesizing and "translating" information from a wide variety of sources, he provides special feature boxes, health care vignettes, a glossary of terms, and case studies from all over the globe for an accessible and engaging presentation. Curing the Crisis is appropriate for a variety of readers who want to stay abreast of the issues in American health care that develop in the political arena as well as close to home