The Cost Conundrum

Here are some questions to get you thinking about the readings for tomorrow.
Post your comments below.

These readings focus on the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the U.S.  When you compare our healthcare system to other nations who offer healthcare to those who need it at little cost (see Reid’s chapter on the different HC models), it is a paradox that as the most powerful, most innovative, and richest nation, when it comes to providing “the essential task of providing health care for people, the mighty USA is a fourth-rate power.”

Let's start with the general idea of the readings for this week:

Why is the cost of healthcare so high?

1. Why is our model of healthcare not able to control the costs and provide healthcare to those who need it?
2. Why doesn’t better technology help to reduce the costs of healthcare, or rather, why do high-tech advances increase costs instead of lowering them?

Brill says that to fix the high cost problem, we need to “let the foxes run the henhouse.”  What does he mean by that?  Do you agree?

In her NY Times series on the costs of health care, Elisabeth Rosenthal examines the price of medical care in the United States, interviewing patients, physicians, economists, and hospital and industry officials. In each installment, readers were invited to share their perspectives on managing costs and treatment. There are also follow-up articles that are related to the topic.
Assignment 2: Paying Till It Hurts (Due: on our class blog by Thurs., Feb. 4)

Video: Steven Brill on Rising Medical Costs, based on his Time magazine special issue, “The Bitter Pill”, March 4, 2013.

Video: “Bending the Cost Curve": Dr. Jeffrey Brenner