Someone Else's Money: Our health industry

[highland145]

There's a stream episode button in the middle upper page.
It's 1hr but interesting.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/392/Someone-Elses-Money

PROLOGUE.
Host Ira Glass talks to Rob Lamberts, a doctor and blogger in Georgia, who describes the crazy world of medical billing, where armies of coders use several contradictory different systems of codes...and none of it makes us healthier. (5 minutes)

Act One. One Pill Two Pill, Red Pill Blue Pill.
Planet Money's Chana Joffe-Walt explains why prescription drug coupons could actually be increasing how much we pay, and prevent us from even telling how much drugs cost. (13 1/2 minutes)

Act Two. Let's Take Your Medical History.
Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson recount how four accidental steps led to enacting the very questionable system of employers paying for health care. (11 1/2 minutes)

Act Three. Insurance? Ruh Roh!
Planet Money correspondent David Kestenbaum investigates the growing popularity of pet insurance, and what it reveals about insurance for people. (14 minutes )

Act Four. Sorry Johnny... It's Only Business.
This American Life producer Sarah Koenig reports on a very surprising reason why insurance companies dump members, and how this reasoning contradicts President Obama's argument for what will lower health care costs. (11 1/2 minutes)

Another NPR link along the same line.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/391/More-Is-Less

PROLOGUE.
Former Bush Administration official David Frum explains a very surprising fact about Bush's economic failure, as it relates to health care. Frum is a regular contributor to the radio show Marketplace. (5 minutes)

Act One. Dartmouth Atlas Shrugged.
Are doctors to blame for the rising costs? NPR Science Correspondent Alix Spiegel reports on the shocking results of studies about varied health care spending. Hear more health care stories this week from Alix at npr.org. (18 minutes)

Act Two. Every CAT Scan has Nine Lives.
Or is the problem the patients? Producer Lisa Pollak reports. (12 1/2 minutes)

Act Three. Who Would Win in a Fight Between a Polar Bear and an Insurance Company?
Or maybe the insurance companies are to blame? Producer Sarah Koenig reports. (12 1/2 minutes )

Act Four. Now What?
Host Ira Glass talks with Susan Dentzer, editor of the journal Health Affairs, about what current health reform proposals do to fix the rising costs of healthcare...And points at a surprising, kind of heartening phenomenon happening within the current debate. (6 minutes)

 

[Special K]

I listened to both of these when they were first released last fall and found both of them to be very informative. :thumbsup: