The story of friends, family, hometown values – and an entrepreneur who changed American health care

In 1961, David A. Jones and another young lawyer borrowed $1,000 each to build a nursing home. That modest investment turned into Humana: first the largest nursing home company in the U.S., then the largest hospital corporation, and today one of the nation’s largest health insurance and integrated care companies.

Always Moving Forward is Jones’ account of how a poor kid from Louisville, Kentucky, was able to succeed on that scale. With humor, he talks about his optimism, his love of books, his “competitive mindset and willingness to throw a solid punch when necessary” – and of having one very important quality at the start: “the confidence of total ignorance.”

Along the way, Jones championed for-profit health care, played a role in such cutting-edge medical advances as the artificial heart, rose to a Presidential challenge to help newly independent Romania rebuild its antiquated health care system, and lived through the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. After Jones retired, he and one of his sons also built one of the largest metropolitan parks completed in this century.