Explores how modern presidents have wrestled with their own mortality--and how they have taken this most human experience to heart as they faced the difficult politics of health care.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: the enigmatic angler -- Harry S. Truman : we'll take the starch out of them, eventually -- Dwight D. Eisenhower: compassionate conservative -- John F. Kennedy: the charismatic with a stricken father -- Lyndon B. Johnson : the secret history of Medicare -- Richard Nixon: a flower that bloomed only in the dark -- Jimmy Carter: the righteous engineer -- Ronald Reagan : socialized medicine and the working stiff -- George Herbert Walker Bush : stick to the running game -- Bill Clinton : kicking the can down the road -- George W. Bush : bring it on : reforming Medicare.