Breaking Point - How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans

Our market-based, profit-driven health care system in the United States has put necessary care increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary Americans. Primary health care, the fundamental foundation of all high-performing health care systems in the world, is a critical but ignored casualty of the current system. Unfortunately, primary care is often poorly understood, even within the health professions. This book describes what has become a crisis in primary care, defines its central role, analyzes the reasons for its decline, and assesses its impacts on patients and families. A constructive approach is presented to rebuild and transform U.S. primary care with the urgent goal to address the nation's problems of access, cost, quality and equity of health care for all Americans.