The End of Healing    by Jim Bailey Order:  USA  Can The Healthy City, 2015 (2014) Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book      Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth I just finished a 489 page volume - not including a Prologue, Bibliography, Epilogue, Diagram of Healthcare Hell, Health System Syllabus, Acknowledgements, and Reading Group Guide – that scared the blue blazes out of me. I guess The End of Healing by Jim Bailey could be called a wake-up call about our healthcare system regarding fraud, medical mistakes, hospital care, pharmaceutical companies, power flaunted by take-over administrators in love with the power they yield, and myriad information about the state of the healthcare systems in the United States and abroad. This is a powerful book. One that is very hard to read. This book is an exposé of sorts that describes the present-day faults in corporations that have turned the bottom line into the most important goal of health care. A bottom line in which these corporations can dip their sticky fingers at any time a CEO feels the need for a new mansion on the Riviera or a new yacht on the high seas. I mean a $10,000,000 bonus to secure a knowledgeable manager to run a for-profit business not counting his/her salary!! I cannot, in this space, list the depths to which healthcare has fallen. I do know that I don't now care to ever go into a hospital again. And I feel vindicated when being handed pills by my PC doctor in handing them back to her with a 'No, thank you.' Fictional characters have been brought into the picture to tell the stories of what the author has to reveal to us. These characters explain the pitfalls that await us should we have the misfortune to become ill. Drs. Don Newman, Frances Hunt, and Bruce Markum are assigned to attend Dr. Chapman's seminars on the true condition of the profession all three students are about to enter. He lays before them the god-awful state of healthcare and explains that no one seems to be trying to do anything to turn it around. He lays out for these students how the public have been tricked into accepting the conditions that now exist. Even to refusing to cover a child with a life-threatening illness because this illness is claimed to be a pre-existing condition and therefore not covered. Author Jim Bailey has backup for all his accusations in the bibliography at the back of the book. The cover is likely to put you off – a scene from Dante's Inferno. But dare to open this tome, read the first page and you're hooked. A tip – whatever you do, don't get sick. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more NonFiction books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews