It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

If you've needed admission to a hospital in the past few years, you might have spent hours, even days, in the emergency department

first, while waiting for a real hospital bed. Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor

at KFF Health News and former ER physician, wrote about the issue of emergency room boarding,

as it's known, for the Atlantic, and we'll talk to her in a minute. In 2024,

by way of background, her husband, Andre, was admitted to the emergency room, the emergency

department, for complications from esophageal cancer. After 36 hours in the ED on a stretcher

in the hallway, he finally got a bed, quote, upstairs,

which itself turned out to be an overflow area that lacked enough personnel. For the last

months of his life, Rosenthal writes, her husband's mantra became, I will not go to the

emergency room. One director of emergency medicine told her that hospitals now run

like airlines and intentionally overbook in order to make money. The problem is in the way

health care finance is structured, her source told her. It can increase the anguish of people who find

themselves in emergency department limbo,

who may not get a bed or have any semblance of privacy, and worst of all, it can lead to some

patients falling through the cracks, which of course can be not just an inconvenience,

but hazardous to their health. Joining us now to discuss her latest is Elizabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing

editor at KFF Health News and a former ER physician herself. She's also author of the book,

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

This new piece for The Atlantic is titled, A Barbaric Problem in American Hospitals is Only Getting Bigger.

Dr. Rosenthal, welcome back to WNYC.

Well, thanks for having me.

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