I'm covered - why should I foot the bill for somebody who isn't? This question, unspoken but simmering at the center of the debate over universal health care coverage, comes in for a thoughtful hearing - and, perhaps, gentle corrective - in Larry Churchill's timely book. Churchill, whose Rationing Health Care in America put the nation's health care crisis into perspective here does the same for our crisis of conscience over health care coverage. As Clinton and Congress spar over the financing and organization of a national health care system, the true debate, this book reveals, is about moral...

In this groundbreaking volume, David Schenck and Larry Churchill present the results of fifty interviews with practitioners identified by their peers as "healers," exploring in depth the things that the best clinicians do. They focus on specific actions that exceptional healers perform to improve their relationships with their patients and, subsequently, improve their patients' overall health. The authors analyze the ritual structure and spiritual meaning of these healing skills, as well as their scientific basis, and offer a new, more holistic interpretation of the "placebo effect."...