Calling healthcare “the sentinel political issue of our time,” Jarvis, a practicing physician of over 35 years, has seen firsthand the “expensive mess” that is American healthcare—and also how the toxic mess that is American politics prevents significant, commonsensical change. Hence this urgent call for “better, simpler, and therefore cheaper care guaranteed for everyone without cost at the point of medical service,” a vision he notes is not at all a “wild-eyed, radical” idea. He takes pains to differentiate this “cooperative health-care system” in which taxes finance care from the boogeyman of “socialism,” arguing that Americans already pay enough in taxes “to finance medically necessary care for every resident in our country without any out-of-pocket costs” and dismantling the myth that “market forces are effective in distributing medicine and surgery.”

With inviting clarity and persuasive power, Jarvis outlines the pricey absurdities of American healthcare and insurance, drawing on case studies and personal experience, making the case that both the public’s health and wealth would benefit from a system that puts patients above profit. He makes this argument as an “original” American conservative, one who acknowledges that a government role in “organizing unity, justice, peace, security, welfare, and freedom” reflects conservative, constitutional values. His vision of a state-based non-profit system calls for no new appropriations.

A devout Christian who heeds “the call of Jesus of Nazareth for us to visit ‘the least’ of our brothers and sisters,” Jarvis laments how both major American political parties are in thrall to corporate interests and calls for an effort across the political spectrum to reform the corruption that has made contemporary healthcare such a reliable source of profits—but not health. “Malice and mischief” have divided us, he argues, but this compact, inspiring, results-minded treatise dares to suggest something too rare: hope that’s not naïve.

Takeaway: A rousing call, from a Christian doctor, for a state-based nonprofit healthcare system.

Great for fans of: Marty Makary’s The Price We Pay, Peter Valenzuela’s Doc-Related.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A