Welcome to the TPMCafe Book Club! This is where we regularly invite authors to come and discuss their most recent works with readers and invited commentators. Past Book Club authors include Thomas Frank, Anthony Shadid, Larry Diamond, George Packer, Ivo Daalder/James Lindsay, Robert Dreyfuss, Chris Mooney, Gene Sperling, Gershom Gorenberg, Peter Beinart, Kevin Phillips, Sidney Blumenthal, Reed Hundt and Anne-Marie Slaughter/John Ikenberry.

This week we'll be discussing Jonathan Cohn's Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price.

In the book, Cohn documents the lives of Americans whose lives have been torn apart by America's broken health care system either because of overworked and underfunded hospitals, the inefficiencies and inequalities of the market-based system, and the weight on business of employer-based insurance. Cohn will argue that those advocating universal care must unapologetically hope and push for the ideal, but be ready to compromise if and when political realities assert themselves.

Debating Cohn will be Jacob Hacker, Ezra Klein, Matthew Holt, Robin Podolsky, Don McCanne, Roger Hickey, Maggie Mahar, Joseph Paduda and Diane Archer. -ahg