On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing A Sick System, a series from The American Prospect about the business of health care in the US and why it "is deeply out of whack."
The series examines the "inner workings of monopolies and cartels extracting ever greater sums for ever lousier outcomes, and the policies and protocols pushing doctors and nurses to the brink - and increasingly into labor unions." In the US, the portion of national health expenditures commanded by administrative overhead and waste has grown to an estimated 30 percent, while the portion that pays doctors and nurses has fallen. Last year, the top seven insurance company CEOs made $335 million.
Stories also focus on bipartisan effort to gut the Veterans Health Administration, the growing influence of private equity, drug price gouging, and the retail-ification of healthcare.
Guests:
Maureen Tkacik, senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, investigations editor at the American Prospect, and co-founder of Jezebel
David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power
Web Resources:
The American Prospect: A Sick System
The American Prospect: When M.D.s Go Union
The American Prospect: My Life in Corporate Medicine
The American Prospect: Gunning for More VA Privatization
The American Prospect: Shock Treatment in the Emergency Room
The American Prospect: Patient Zero
The American Prospect: Q&A: How Corporate Medicine Destroys Doctors
The American Prospect: Health Care’s Intertwined Colossus
The American Prospect: Discount Health
The American Prospect: The Oliver Twist
The American Prospect: The Great American Hospital Shell Game
The American Prospect: Gatekeeper of the Gougers
