The severe, weird recession... in health care. And what it means for our wallets

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You've probably noticed: The U.S. economy is crashing.

Something you may not have noticed, that may sound really weird: Almost half of that economic devastation comes from just one sector.

And that sector? It's health care.

If that sounds completely backwards, it is. Except in the world of how we pay for health care in this country.

Because even though we as a society need health care workers like never before, to fight COVID...

... we-as-individuals are avoiding doctors' offices and hospitals for everything else, whenever we can. Just like we're avoiding going out to eat.

And this country runs health care kind of like the restaurant industry: When people stop showing up for Sunday brunch— or for hip replacements, colonoscopies, etc. —the enterprise runs short of cash real fast.

Even folks you'd think would be the most in-demand — ER docs fighting COVID—aren't immune.

In this episode, we look at some of the extra weird details of this very-weird recession: how a couple pieces of it are working, and what they could mean. For our wallets.

We draw in this story on stuff we covered in a Season 3 episode called Can They Freaking DO That?!? It's still fun and relevant, and you can catch it right here.https://armandalegshow.com/episode/can-they-freaking-do-that/

Thanks to everyone who supports this show on Patreon! Join 'em, and we'll shout you out at the end of an episode: https://www.patreon.com/armandalegshow

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. You've probably noticed the U.S. economy is crashing. Lots of us have seen it in our own lives, our families, jobs gone, sometimes whole workplaces, done. Government figures show unemployment is hitting great depression levels. And here is something you may not have noticed and that may sound really weird.
0:20.0	Almost half of that economic devastation comes from just one sector.
0:25.0	And that sector, it's health care.
0:29.0	And if that sounds completely backwards, it is, except in the world of how we pay for health
0:35.8	care in this country.
0:37.6	This is an arm and a leg.
0:38.8	Show about the cost of health care.
0:40.3	I'm Dan Weissman.
0:41.7	Last year, the New York Times ran an essay by one of my journalistic heroes, Elizabeth
0:46.3	Rosenthal. She's the editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News. There are co-producers for this show.
0:51.5	And she wrote the book, An American Sickness, how health care
0:54.6	became big business and how you can take it back. In this essay last year she
0:59.1	said one thing we should look at about a policy like Medicare for All, a lot of people would lose
1:04.3	their jobs. She cited a number. 1.8 million people. I called one of the people she
1:10.8	quoted in that essay, Robert Poland. he's an economist at the University of Massachusetts
1:14.8	And are you one of the sources of the number I've seen like 1.8 million?
1:19.6	I am the source I'm the one.
1:36.3	Yeah so your colleague Elizabeth Rosenthal, once she put it out and it was in the New York Times, then of course Fox News and yeah I'm quoted more for that one statistic 1.8 million it's from a study he did in 2017 you know it's it's a 200 page study with all kinds of
1:41.7	things but that's the one thing the study is best
1:44.6	known for he's a fan of Medicare for all but he wanted to be honest people would
1:49.0	lose their jobs lots of them and he was talking about people who work for insurance companies,
1:54.7	processing claims, and the people who work in hospitals and medical practices,
	...

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