Michael K. Gusmano – författare

New York. London. Paris. Although these cities have similar sociodemographic characteristics, including income inequalities and ethnic diversity, they have vastly different health systems and services. This book compares the three and considers lessons that can be applied to current and future debates about urban health care. Highlighting the importance of a national policy for city health systems, the authors use well-established indicators and comparable data sources to shed light on urban health policy and practice. Their detailed comparison of the three city health systems and the national policy regimes in which they function provides information about access to health care in the developed world's largest cities. The authors first review the current literature on comparative analysis of health systems and offer a brief overview of the public health infrastructure in each city. Later chapters illustrate how timely and appropriate disease prevention, primary care, and specialty health care services can help cities control such problems as premature mortality and heart disease.In providing empirical comparisons of access to care in these three health systems, the authors refute inaccurate claims about health care outside of the United States.

How are four major world cities coping with the challenges posed by increasing human longevity and population aging? Top researchers, scholars and policymakers compare what it is like to grow older in New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo with respect to health and quality of life, living arrangements and housing, and the provision of long-term care to older persons when they eventually become frail.

How are four major world cities coping with the challenges posed by increasing human longevity and population aging? Top researchers, scholars and policymakers compare what it is like to grow older in New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo with respect to health and quality of life, living arrangements and housing, and the provision of long-term care to older persons when they eventually become frail.

How financial profiteering has reshaped long-term care and jeopardized the well-being of nursing home residents.Nursing homes care for some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens. They are also increasingly controlled by financial actors whose priorities lie far from the bedside. In Financialization of the US Nursing Home Industry, Laura Katz Olson and Michael K. Gusmano examine how for-profit companies—and increasingly private equity firms and real estate investment trusts (REITs) with complex ownership structures—have transformed long-term care into a vehicle for profit extraction.Drawing on extensive case studies of major chains and mid-sized operators, the authors trace the industry's consolidation over decades and document how financial engineering—asset stripping, related-party transactions, real estate manipulation, and deliberate labor cost cutting—has reshaped nursing home operations. Chronic understaffing, declining care quality, opaque ownership arrangements, and repeated bankruptcies plague a system designed to maximize returns. The book places these developments in historical and policy context, showing how federal and state government policies enabled substandard conditions even as public funds—primarily Medicare and Medicaid—now supply roughly three-quarters of industry revenue. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed long-standing systemic obstacles to decent care, revealing how financial priorities can have deadly consequences for residents and frontline caregivers alike.This essential book offers scholars, policymakers, students, and advocates a comprehensive account of how the nursing home industry works—or doesn't work—and why meaningful reform will require structural change. Care for powerless older people, the authors argue, must be treated as a public responsibility rather than a private investment strategy.