Book overview
The U.S. healthcare system is in crisis - and the familiar solutions aren't working. Single-payer advocates and free-market defenders have spent decades talking past each other while costs spiral, primary care collapses, and millions remain underinsured. In Beyond Medicare For All: Cracking the Code of the Healthcare Affordability Crisis, veteran healthcare journalist Ken Terry offers something neither side has managed to deliver: a bold, practical, and politically workable path to universal, affordable care.
Building on his groundbreaking 2020 book Physician-Led Healthcare Reform, Terry introduces a new financing framework that doesn't require dismantling private insurance or expanding the federal government's role in delivering care. Instead, he proposes a layered model in which competing primary care groups take financial responsibility for basic care through a subscription model - while restructured health insurers cover hospital, post-acute, and higher-cost outpatient services. Employer and government subsidies ensure that no one is priced out of coverage.
What makes this model different?
- Primary care reimagined: At-risk basic care groups manage population health and control costs - rescuing a specialty on the verge of financial collapse.
- Global hospital budgets: Modeled on Maryland's proven approach, hospital budgeting creates strong incentives for cost discipline across health systems.
- Insurance market reform: Restructured coverage pools make insurer participation viable and profitable - without sacrificing consumer protections.
- Emerging challenges addressed: Health IT, rural healthcare, social determinants of health, and a novel proposal for slowing technology-driven cost growth round out the framework.
With a foreword by health policy expert David W. Johnson, Beyond Medicare For All is an essential resource for physician leaders, healthcare executives, policymakers, and engaged citizens who are ready to move past the debate - and start building a system that works.
