A Spirit of Charity Caputures Two Silver Medals from Leading Indy Publishing Groups
Now available through these sellers
Seattle Books: http://www.seattlebookcompany.com/a-spirit-of-charity-restoring-the-bond-between-america-and-its-public-hospitals/
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1XcPilS
Books-A-Million: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Spirit-Charity/Mike-King/Q544377725?id=6716200349109
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-spirit-of-charity-mike-king/1123910318?ean=9781944962081
IndieBound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781944962067
And at these fine independent book stories in Atlanta:
A Cappella Books http://www.acappellabooks.com/pages/books/158230/mike-king/a-spirit-of-charity
Eagle Eye Books: http://www.shopeagleeyebooks.com/?page=shop/flypage&product_id=152139&keyword=A+Spirit+of+Charity&searchby=&offset=0&fs=1
Lectures, Interviews, Signings and Excerpts:
Upcoming events:
Guest speaker: The Needs of Public Health in the Face of Political Change Seminar, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Saturday, April 29th, 2017, 9 a.m. "Universal Health Care; The One Hundred Years Civil War in America."
Recent commentary:
Why We Should Advocate for Funding our Public Hospitals, The Hill http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/294186-why-we-should-advocate-for-funding-our-public-hospitals
What happens to Obamacare after Obama, The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/57d849efe4b0a5cd12d74167?timestamp=1473793270398
Zika hits the mainland while Congress plays politics. Co-authored by Arthur Caplan. STAT, https://www.statnews.com/2016/08/05/zika-florida-congress-public-health/?s_campaign=tw&utm_content=buffereb513&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Podcasts of interviews:
Georgia Public Broadcasting's Celeste Headlee talks to Mike King during her "On Second Thought" program. Listen here: http://gpbnews.org/post/why-georgias-hospitals-are-public-policy-issue
Rose Scott and Jim Burress discuss the book on their "Closer Look" program on Atlanta's NPR station, WABE-90.1 FM. http://news.wabe.org/post/closer-look-profiling-americas-public-hospitals-and-more
Another NPR affiliate interview with Bill Burton, Morning Edition host, WFPL (89.3), Louisville, Ky. about the book here:_http://wfpl.org/former-louisville-journalist-mike-king-to-release-first-book/
Excerpts and Interviews about A Spirit of Charity:
A Q&A with Cindy Zeldin, executive director, Georgians for a Healthy Future:
http://healthyfuturega.org/2016/06/15/qa-spirit-charity-author-mike-king/
America's Essential Hospitals Q&A with the author:
Part 1: https://essentialhospitals.org/new-book-highlights-essential-hospitals-role-in-u-s-health-care-system/
Part 2: https://essentialhospitals.org/author-highlights-continued-importance-of-essential-hospitals
Atlanta's Creative Loafing alternative newspaper has an excerpt from the book and a Q&A:
http://clatl.com/atlanta/georgias-broken-mental-health-system/Content?oid=17272861
http://clatl.com/atlanta/a-qanda-with-mike-king-author-of-a-spirit-of-charity/Content?oid=17272878
Georgia Health News excerpt: http://www.georgiahealthnews.com/2016/05/curtain-story-gradys-narrow-escape/
Atlanta Journal-Constitution guest column: http://www.myajc.com/news/news/opinion/public-hospitals-serve-us-all/nrTLr/
About the Book
Grady Hospital, Atlanta, prior to 1892 opening.
Most Americans have historically viewed the nation’s great public hospitals as refuges of last resort for poor and uninsured people. But these iconic institutions – some recently closed, some renamed, others rebuilt -- have also served as a safety valve for the nation’s highly profitable medical industrial complex.
They are a key to understanding the evolution of America’s $3 trillion health care system, not just for the poor, but the affluent as well.
Through an examination of their unique history and an incisive analysis of policy successes and failures, A Spirit of Charity reveals the remarkable story of why public hospitals matter and why they should play a more prominent role in our public policy discussions.
Praise for A Spirit of Charity
Grady Hospital, Atlanta, circa 1920s.
"All hospitals deliver an endless loop of drama. In America’s great public hospitals, the show is nothing short of operatic...
Most chroniclers confine themselves to the human interest stories, reasoning that the funding of these hospitals is unlikely to be as gripping. It turns out that’s not necessarily the case, certainly not in this first strange decade of reformed health care, as the federal government drapes the nation in a health safety net full of holes.
Where does that leave the venerable hospitals of last resort, the nets beneath the net.
Mike King probes this question in “A Spirit of Charity: Restoring the Bond Between America and Its Public Hospitals.” His decades of experience as an Atlanta-based journalist covering health care in the South have versed him well in the doublespeak of health care financing for America’s poor. His is a moving, ridiculously complicated target.
Still, his outrage on behalf of our continuously threatened public hospitals should be immensely gratifying to all of their fans."
- Abigail Zuger, M.D., The New York Times — http://nyti.ms/2bcikUv
"A searing and sobering indictment of the public health care system that highlights the inequality of treatment. Carefully documented, journalistically crafted, and artfully told, this account illuminates the myriad struggles of public hospitals to effectively treat the indigent.
Mike King bluntly asks: “Have we reached the point where public officials, particularly those in the South, are frozen in the ice of their own indifference when it comes to the government’s responsibility in caring for the poor?"
- Kirkus Reviews
"The book is thorough, extremely well-researched, and comprehensive, balancing its exposition of the social issues surrounding public hospitals with the constant, wearying financial crises that have continuously threatened their existence. Regardless of political or social position, it is impossible not to be grateful for the information that this book imparts. This is an important corner of American life that has been sorely neglected."
- Foreword Reviews
Most chroniclers confine themselves to the human interest stories, reasoning that the funding of these hospitals is unlikely to be as gripping. It turns out that’s not necessarily the case, certainly not in this first strange decade of reformed health care, as the federal government drapes the nation in a health safety net full of holes.
Where does that leave the venerable hospitals of last resort, the nets beneath the net.
Mike King probes this question in “A Spirit of Charity: Restoring the Bond Between America and Its Public Hospitals.” His decades of experience as an Atlanta-based journalist covering health care in the South have versed him well in the doublespeak of health care financing for America’s poor. His is a moving, ridiculously complicated target.
Still, his outrage on behalf of our continuously threatened public hospitals should be immensely gratifying to all of their fans."
- Abigail Zuger, M.D., The New York Times — http://nyti.ms/2bcikUv
"A searing and sobering indictment of the public health care system that highlights the inequality of treatment. Carefully documented, journalistically crafted, and artfully told, this account illuminates the myriad struggles of public hospitals to effectively treat the indigent.
Mike King bluntly asks: “Have we reached the point where public officials, particularly those in the South, are frozen in the ice of their own indifference when it comes to the government’s responsibility in caring for the poor?"
- Kirkus Reviews
"The book is thorough, extremely well-researched, and comprehensive, balancing its exposition of the social issues surrounding public hospitals with the constant, wearying financial crises that have continuously threatened their existence. Regardless of political or social position, it is impossible not to be grateful for the information that this book imparts. This is an important corner of American life that has been sorely neglected."
- Foreword Reviews
Charity Hospital, New Orleans, closed 2005.
“How did we get here? Why have these myths about health care lasted so long? Why is the United States the exception among our peer-nations when it comes to universal coverage? What role do public hospitals play both in protecting the vulnerable and allowing us to ignore the sources of their vulnerability? Can or should we hope for a day when the public hospital is no more? A Spirit of Charity has many of the answers to these vital questions.”
- From the Foreword by Arthur Caplan, PhD; director medical ethics, NYU Langone Medical Center
- From the Foreword by Arthur Caplan, PhD; director medical ethics, NYU Langone Medical Center
Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, November 22, 1963.
"The health care system in the United States – and not merely the latest iteration, the Affordable Care Act -- is engaged in a protracted trial. It is facing ferocious prosecutors and browbeaten defenders. It is beset by misrepresentations it cannot stem and market forces it cannot stop. And it must routinely confront jury tampering from a political class that responds to ideology before common sense.
What we’ve needed during this trial -- and what we now have in Mike King -- is an expert witness who grasps history and has learned from it, who is an astute analyst of flood-stage data and is not swept away by it, who sees clearly through the political masks and is not spooked by them, and someone who understands that a healthcare system without a heart cannot heal, salve or save this nation’s troubled soul.
Through stories of achievements, challenges and calamities at five large public hospitals in the U.S., King shows that medical excellence resides where few people expect to find it – and how those centers are threatened by misplaced public priorities and political mythologies.”
- From Hank Klibanoff, journalist, professor at Emory University, and co-author of "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation," winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in history.
Cook County Hospital, Chicago, closed 2002.
“Any effort at health care reform must first understand the essential role of public hospitals, which is what makes A Spirit of Charity required reading for policy makers and health advocates alike.”
- Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.