You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today —Abraham Lincoln, American President For a considerably long time American healthcare costs have been on an upward spiral. In 2016, they stood at USD 3.3 trillion, almost a fifth of the country’s GDP. It meant an expenditure of USD 10,348 per person. In 1960, in comparison, it was just five per cent of the nation’s GDP. The crisis, fuelled by less healthier lifestyles than decades ago, is blowing very hard with many in the U.S. finding it next-to-impossible to buy expensive private health insurance. As a result it burdens the Government to provide Medicare and Medicaid, programmes that have given leeway to health care providers to raise prices.

Given the current situation, someone, somewhere, needs to do some out-of-the box thinking and come up with smart solutions without letting things degenerate further. No more can America’s health professionals escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today. In this dire scenario billionaires Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase decided to find someone who could at least find a solution for employees of the companies they run—these employees number about 1.2 million. The unique search committee carried out dozens of interviews before zeroing down on Dr Atul Gawande, an Indian-origin doctor currently based in Boston.