457. Is Dialysis a Test Case of Medicare for All?

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🗓️ 8 April 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

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Summary

Kidney failure is such a catastrophic (and expensive) disease that Medicare covers treatment for anyone, regardless of age. Since Medicare reimbursement rates are fairly low, the dialysis industry had to find a way to tweak the system if they wanted to make big profits. They succeeded.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On last week's episode, we asked whether the US healthcare system is really as messed up
0:08.7	as people think.
0:09.7	Oh, I think absolutely the US health system is as messed up as people think it is probably
0:14.2	more so.
0:15.4	In the US, we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare, around $3.5 trillion a year.
0:22.8	The big players are doing extremely well.
0:25.6	The stakeholders are making a ton of money except for one stakeholder, which is the patient.
0:31.7	As we were interviewing doctors and healthcare economists and policymakers, there was one
0:37.1	story that kept coming up as a cautionary tale.
0:41.0	Here's Zach Cooper.
0:42.0	He's a healthcare economist at Yale.
0:44.6	You want to know why the US healthcare system is messed up?
0:46.6	But look at how we treat folks with end-stage renal disease.
0:50.0	End-stage renal disease, or ESRD, is the final and permanent stage of chronic kidney disease.
0:56.5	It's also known as kidney failure.
0:58.6	By this point, the kidneys are no longer able to perform the vital function of filtering
1:03.9	your blood.
1:05.1	Left untreated, the condition is fatal.
1:08.2	What are the treatment options?
1:10.0	Here's Ryan McDevitt, an economist at Duke.
1:13.3	Transplant is the most preferred option.
1:14.9	It's the only way to cure this condition long-term.
	...

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