Not long ago, TIME magazine ran a whole issue about the high costs of healthcare. Well, a very long cover story, anyway. Today, NPR's Diane Rehm's show featured a discussion of the same topics with the journalist who wrote the article.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio-player?nid=17377
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-02-27/us-health-care-costs
Something amazing I've learned is what he has learned since writing the article.
People have been disgusted with costs of healthcare for a long time, but recently is has gotten so much worse that "disgusted" barely scratches the surface.
His argument seems to be that the high costs are mostly because we have a market where the buyer (us) has no power. He uses the term "unwilling participant" for citizens like us. "Rampant profiteering" by healthcare providers is another term of his that I thought apt.
He argues that medicare is one of the few ways healthcare costs are regulated, and he think they do "a pretty good job" setting prices at livable rates. He points out (and this was news to me) that the congressional discussions about healthcare (often called Obamacare) do not address the reasons behind the high costs, simply try to increase the payouts the government (and thus taxpayer) makes.
The journalist makes an excellent point that the healthcare lobbyists in Washington make profit capping extremely difficult. Virtually no other countries do not have our problems.
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