Chronic illness is at the heart of America's high-cost, high-stress, health care crisis. Whether it's asthma, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer's or another disease, the problems facing people suffering from long-term chronic conditions are similar - too little care, too little support, too high a cost and too much struggle with a health care system not designed to meet their needs.

Families panic at the prospect of providing round-the-clock care without training or financial support. Doctors are overwhelmed by patients with chronic illness flooding into emergency rooms because they don't have access to preventative, well-managed care. In the workplace, employees with poorly-managed medical conditions and family caregivers with responsibilities at home create an impossible dilemma for their employers. Meanwhile, our health care system, primarily geared to acute care, seems to hemorrhage time and money as it struggles to cope with the continual demands of managing a long-term disease.

Moderated by award-winning journalist John Hockenberry, this 60-minute program brings together a diverse group of doctors, patients, caregivers, experts and concerned citizens who get to the heart of these issues. Using the Fred Friendly Seminars format, moderator John Hockenberry pushes the panelists to explore the dilemmas and the tough choices that chronic illness and the demands of caregiving force families, healthcare providers and employers to confront.

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Photo Credits:  © Don Perdue, 2000