American healthcare is taking a toll on America's health. Costs outpace economic growth, medical debt plagues millions, confusing and surprising bills infect further more, insurance premiums and deductibles are out of control, and at the end of the day we're not even receiving better care as a result of all this change.

In part one of a three part series, we will hear three personal stories as we try and make sense of where American healthcare went wrong - and how we can get it back on track.

Full transcript available

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This is part one of a three part series on the American healthcare system:

Chapters

06:31 Juanne from Ontario

11:44 Insurance and surprise charges

17:55 Insurance's humble origins

20:06 Insurance competition raises costs

24:40 Hospitals flex their power

32:44 Joel from DC

37:11 American medical coding oddity

48:24 Emergency service private equity

53:07 "Residency and training, or free labor?"

56:29 Matt from Nashville

1:03:57 What can we do?

Reommended Reading

We corresponded with Winston from the North East US who offered some insightful comments from his experience working as a contractor call center agent for a major insurance company, and later in legal marketing for a firm that worked with Social Security cases:

I've had to tell the elderly about the plans they had with their insurer - many times they had no clue what they had agreed to. I've had to tell people that their drugs wouldn't be covered for a large part of the calendar year, but after they spent thousands, they'd get coverage for a few months until the cycle started over again ( the Medicare "donut hole"). I can point out forums where people ask unqualified marketing specialists for help with getting their family members on Medicaid. I've seen people ask how a divorce would aid their ability to get Medicaid for their kids. I've had to tell many people that I cannot help them.

Read the full correspondence here

Sources

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Published 11-10-2018 23:02