 An academic health center (AHC) consists of a medical school and one or more health professional schools. These schools are joined to one or more affiliated teaching hospitals that are under common ownership or closely aligned with the medical school. This book focuses on the academic health centers (AHCs) that provide medical care to the urban poor. The urban poor belong to a group of people with income below the federal level of poverty and people who are uninsured. The book centers primarily on the relationship between AHCs and the urban poor subsequent to the passage of Medicare and Medicaid.