"Castellblanch tells a vivid and troubling story about health care in the United States.... Combining history and tough-minded analysis, he makes a significant contribution, leavening the painful developments with a touch of optimism about reforms stirring at the grassroots." —James A. Morone, Brown University

How did a profession once centered on patient care become a profit-maximizing business—one that has generated soaring costs, increasingly poor access, and healthcare outcomes far below those of comparable countries? Can the trend be reversed? Those are the questions at the heart of The Looting of US Healthcare.

Tracing the evolution of the healthcare system from a set of institutions built around the needs of the medical profession to one controlled by executives and money managers, Ramón Castellblanch follows the pyramid of actors in the system to those at the top: the giants of US asset management, aided by a policy process that gives them wide latitude. He draws on a range of cases—from hospital chains to dialysis to insurance markets—to explain the profiteering of the US medical sector, and to propose much needed, realistic reforms.