P&P Live! Nicholas Freudenberg, Abdul El-Sayed, and Micah Johnson — American Healthcare: What’s Broken and How We Can Fix It

There are few issues as consequential in the lives of Americans as healthcare–and few issues more politically vexing. Every single American will interact with the healthcare system at some point in their lives, and most people will find that interaction less than satisfactory. And yet for every dollar spent in our economy, 18 cents go to healthcare. What are we paying for, exactly?

Healthcare policy is notoriously complex, but what Americans want is simple: good healthcare that’s easy to use and doesn’t break the bank. Polls show that a majority of Americans want the government to provide universal health coverage to all Americans. Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide is the roadmap to America’s most debated policy-in-waiting

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At What Cost confronts how globalization, financial speculation, monopolies, and control of science and technology have enhanced the ability of corporations and their allies to overwhelm influences of government, family, community, and faith. As corporations manipulate demand through skillful marketing and veto the choices that undermine their bottom line, free consumer choice has all but disappeared, and with it, the personal protections guarding our collective health. At What Cost argues that the world created by 21st-century capitalism is simply not fit to solve our most serious public health problems, from climate change to opioid addiction. However, author and public health expert Nicholas Freudenberg also shows that though the road is steep, human and planetary well-being constitute a powerful mobilizing idea for a new social movement, one that will restore the power of individual voice to our democracy.