Financial and political pressures on our health care system have negatively impacted individual care and the health system as a whole, an issue that has only become more acute because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Building a Unified American Health Care System, Gilead I Lancaster, MD, lays out a blueprint for comprehensive health care reform, proposing a unified system run by health care professionals—not politicians or commercial health insurance companies—that offers universal coverage and access.

Lancaster compares the current arguments for single payer versus commercial health insurance systems with arguments in the early 1900s for a central bank versus regional commercial banks. He then introduces a novel solution: the establishment of a National Medical Board similar to the Federal Reserve System that helped fix the American banking system over a century ago. Along with other innovations, a plan co-created by Lancaster dubbed EMBRACE (Expanding Medical and Behavioral Resources with Access to Care for Everyone) would involve creating a modern, evidence-based health care system, one offering universal coverage for basic needs while allowing for commercial insurance participation. Emphasizing the importance of separating health care from governmental and commercial pressures and incentives, Lancaster explains the need for comprehensive—rather than incremental—reform of the American health care system.