By Joseph Q. Jarvis | Published: 6 September 2026
Eight years ago this month I published my first book-“The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care”. As an independently publishing author I qualified for a book review from Blue Ink, and received a Star, or special endorsement of the book. Below please find the entire text of the review. If you are interested in reading the book you can find a link to it on the Utah Cares website (View source at utahcares.health) where you can also find information about state based universal healthcare reform.
Joseph Q. Jarvis has been examining America’s broken health-care system as a doctor and public health official for 40 years, and he has a sensible, reasoned prescription to fix what ails it, all detailed in his valuable and persuasive book, The Purple World.
Non-ideological and straight-talking, Jarvis has provided patient care and negotiated with HMO executives, qualifying him to assess all sides of our behemoth system. His diagnosis is not surprising: Americans don’t have the best health care, only the most profitable. The “medical industry complex,” he writes, exerts a “public-policy vise” on Congress, which allows insurance companies to transfer the growing price of care to patients. Medicine has been reduced to a business opportunity, but one cannot maximize profits and optimize care, he argues.
His prescription? States should start seizing power from Washington and offer comprehensive, publicly financed health benefits to every citizen. Among his recommendations: enrollment should be easy, even automatic; patients should have a choice of doctors and no out-of-pocket expenses; and those with mental illness and addiction should no longer be criminalized. He convincingly explains exactly how this will save money and improve care, partly by introducing social accountability – putting patients above profit– into health care delivery.
Jarvis isn’t all policy wonk, though. He explains why he left family practice to find purpose as a public health officer in Nevada. He relates many entertaining and educational stories, such as how his agency tried to address indoor air pollution in the Nevada state legislative building, but one three-pack-a-day smoker in the senate (Marvin Sedway) resisted all efforts to restrict smoking on his side.
Jarvis brings quiet authority to his unabashed crusade for change, most recently as a Republican candidate (unsuccessful) for the Utah state senate and creator of a non-profit organization providing credible information to the public. Voters must shun party labels and become “purple,” he argues. Amazingly, he makes change seem not only smart, but feasible.
Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a public health physician, chair of the Utah Cares Political Issue Committee and author of several books, including The Purple World: Healing the Harm in American Health Care and What the Single Eye Sees: Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Pursuit of Discipleship.