The Big Fail
What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
From the collaborators behind the modern business classic All the Devils are Here comes a damning indictment of American capitalism—and the leaders that left us brutally unprepared for a global pandemic
In 2020, the novel coronavirus pandemic made it painfully clear that the U.S. could not adequately protect its citizens. Millions of Americans suffered—and over a million died—in less than two years, while government officials blundered; prize-winning economists overlooked devastating trade-offs; and elites escaped to isolated retreats, unaffected by and even profiting from the pandemic.
Why and how did America, in a catastrophically enormous failure, become the world leader in COVID deaths? In this page-turning economic, political, and financial history, veteran journalists Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera offer fresh and provocative answers. With laser-sharp analysis and deep sourcing, they investigate both what really happened when governments ran out of PPE due to snarled supply chains and the shock to the financial system when the world's biggest economy stumbled. They zero in on the effectiveness of wildly polarized approaches, from governor Andrew Cuomo's lockdowns to governor Ron DeSantis's insistence on keeping Florida open under the guidance of scientist Jay Bhattacharya. And they trace why thousands died in hollowed-out hospital systems and nursing homes run by private equity firms to “maximize shareholder value."
In the tradition of the authors’ previous landmark exposés, The Big Fail is an expansive, insightful account on what the pandemic did to the economy and how American capitalism has jumped the rails—and is essential reading to understand where we’re going next.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this withering account, The Free Press columnist Nocera and journalist McLean, who previously collaborated on 2010's All the Devils Are Here, survey the policy decisions, made in some cases decades before 2020, that hampered America's ability to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors highlight the effects of NAFTA, suggesting that it fueled the globalization of supply chains so that by the time the virus hit the U.S., most hospitals bought PPE on an as-needed basis from China and had few domestic alternatives. The industrialization of American hospitals also proved disastrous, they contend, chronicling how the efforts of Nashville internist Tommy Frist Sr. to privatize and franchise hospitals in the late 1960s heralded a noxious trend of prioritizing profits over patient care, leading hospitals to cut costs by reducing the number of available beds and all but assuring medical facilities didn't have the capacity to handle waves of patients as Covid swept the country in 2020. Nocera and McLean excel at teasing out how political polarization, private equity's takeover of nursing homes, and other factors intersected in disastrous fashion during the pandemic, combining first-rate reportage with astute big-picture analysis. It's among the best reports to date on America's botched pandemic response.
