Anthem and the tug-of-war between insurers and hospitals
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When health insurer Anthem decided to limit the length of anesthesia during surgery that it would cover, it became a scandal at a time when resentment toward health insurers was already particularly visible. Anthem quickly canceled that policy. But behind all this is an ongoing conflict between insurers and doctors. Also: a look how debt is impacting holiday spending and what risks come with leaving our home-viewing choices to streamers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Time is running out to make a tax-deductible donation to Marketplace before the end of the year. |
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| 0:22.4 | Marketplace.org slash donate or follow that link in the show notes. |
| 0:28.3 | Forget average shopping. A lot of people have to spend less for the holidays. |
| 0:33.8 | I'm David Bruncoucho. We're getting down to the wire for holiday shopping, and while we'll see average spending rise, averages lie. Many lower income people are strapped and will spend a lot less. Marketplaces Nancy Marshall-Genzor reports. According to a Gallup survey, wealthier Americans plan to spend more than $1,200 on gifts this year, as did parents of kids under 18 and Republicans. |
| 0:56.8 | But overall, 23% of shoppers surveyed by Gallup said they'd spend less this year, compared to |
| 1:02.8 | 19% who planned to shell out more. Part of the issue, debt. A wallet hub survey found that |
| 1:09.1 | almost half of Americans are still paying off debt from the |
| 1:12.1 | 2023 holiday season. According to bank rate, almost 37% of card holders have maxed out a credit |
| 1:19.3 | card or come close, and Adobe says more people will use Buy Now pay later this year. Still, with those |
| 1:25.8 | wealthier shoppers spending more, Gallup found that |
| 1:28.9 | overall Americans will shell out more for gifts this year, just over $1,000 compared to $975 |
| 1:36.3 | in last year's survey. I'm Nancy Marshall Genser for Marketplace. Honda and Nissan today confirmed |
| 1:43.4 | reports they are talking about merging the year after next |
| 1:46.6 | at a time that China sales are weak and EV conversion expensive. |
| 1:51.1 | The home electronics and appliances company, LG, will stop making Blu-ray players, |
| 1:56.8 | those higher-resolution discs that make movies look better on bigger screens. |
| 2:00.6 | Samsung bailed in 2019, seeing the streaming writing on the wall. |
| 2:04.9 | But as Marketplace's Henry Epp reports, despite all the choices, some good stuff is not available on streaming. |
| 2:11.5 | For media companies, putting a movie on a streaming platform rather than Blu-ray is not only cheaper, says Michael Smith at Carnegie Mellon, |
... |
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