The modern hospital is at once the site of healing, the locus of medical learning and a cornerstone of the welfare state. Its technological and infrastructural costs have transformed health services into one of today's fastest growing sectors, absorbing substantial proportions of national income...

Part I. Cost Efficiency and the Hospital System in the United States -- Chapter 1. Fuzzy Numbers: U.S. Hospital Accounting since the 1930s (Christy F. Chapin) -- Chapter 2. Resisting The Dream of Markets: Maryland’s All-Payer Hospital Rate-Setting System and the Persistence of Regulation in...