BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Hello and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast.

We're the programme that looks at the numbers in the news, in life, and in the itemised bills of US hospitals.

I'm Tim Harford.

Loyal listener Bettany wrote into more or less, questioning this absurd sounding claim

that they heard on our fellow BBC program Inside Science.

Dr. Daniel Levittin, a neuroscientist, was discussing his research into how music can act as a form

of medical therapy, negating the need for expensive drugs.

Here in the US, that volume might be $3.

In a US hospital, that same volume is 750.

Bettany was shocked at the idea that one pill can cost 250 times more in a hospital setting

than in a pharmacy.

If true, that is indeed shocking, but is it true?

Let us dive into the frankly bonkers world of US hospital bills.

Buckle up, it's wild.

So I knew something really bad was happening in our health system.

That's Elizabeth Rosenthal, a healthcare journalist who reported for the New York Times for 22 years

before becoming editor-in-chief at KFF Health News.

KFF, by the way, is a non-profit foundation working on health care policy.

She also wrote the book,

An American Sickness, How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.

Oh, and casually, she has a medical degree from Harvard University.

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