The private health insurance industry is unable to provide nearly 40 million Americans with basic health care. Relying on data from a wide range of publications about this secretive industry, Lawrence D. Weiss investigates the causes of the industry's problems and analyzes the social effects of the growing crisis. The causes include excessive overhead costs, widespread inefficiency, and exemptions from antimonopoly regulations; the social effects include small businesses' inabilities to provide adequate coverage for their employees, the reluctance of many carriers to insure certain social groups, and the disproportionate burden on minorities. Addressing these dilemmas, Lawrence D. Weiss offers a timely and important analysis of the health insurance crisis in America.

Lawrence D. Weiss is medical sociologist at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. He earned his doctoral degree in Sociology at SUNY-Binghamton and completed a post-doctoral degree at Harvard School of Public Health. He is author of numerous articles on national and international health issues.