"In this age of shortened office visits, doctors take care of their patients' immediate needs and often elide their own personal histories. But as reflected in Broke, Michael Stein takes the time to listen to the experiences of his patients whose financial challenges complicate every decision in life they make. Stein asks his patients to tell him about their financial conditions not only to find out how to better treat them but also to bear witness...

The failure of America's medical system, as seen through the stories of the people who engineered the current health care revolution and those who have suffered from it. Every day, millions of Americans find themselves struggling to find affordable medical care for themselves and their families. It is a problem unique to the United States, the only country in the developed world that does not guarantee access to medical care as a right of citizenship....