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913 The Hidden Costs of Health Care

Tune in to our radio show on your local public radio station, or sign up for the podcast and listen at your leisure. Here’s what it’s about:

 How do hospitals determine what to charge for their services? Steven Brill, author of a stunning expose in Time magazine called “Bitter Pill,” suggests there is very little rhyme or reason beyond what the market will bear. Under the current system, those who are least able to pay (the uninsured) end up being charged the most.

 Will that picture change with the implementation of the Accountable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare? Jonathan Oberlander, one of the country’s leading experts on Medicare, tells us how Obamacare is likely to affect the prices we pay for health care in the future.

Guests: Steven Brill is author of a TIME magazine special report:  “Bitter Pill: How Medical Bills Are Killing Us.”  He is also co-founder/CEO of Journalism Online, developer of an e-commerce platform that offers digital publishers flexible subscription models to collect revenue from their online readers. He founded the Yale Journalism Initiative and is author of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight To Fix America’s Schools (2011) and AFTER: How America Confronted the September 12 Era (2003). The photo is of Mr. Brill.

Jonathan Oberlander, PhD, is Professor of Social Medicine and Health Policy & Management at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His book is The Political Life of Medicare.

The podcast of this program will be available the Monday after the broadcast date. The show can be streamed online from this site and podcasts can be downloaded for free for four weeks after the date of broadcast. After that time has passed, digital downloads are available for $2.99. CDs may be purchased at any time after broadcast for $9.99.

 

 

 

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About the Author
Terry Graedon, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and co-host of The People’s Pharmacy radio show, co-author of The People’s Pharmacy syndicated newspaper columns and numerous books, and co-founder of The People’s Pharmacy website. Terry taught in the Duke University School of Nursing and was an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology. She is a Fellow of the Society of Applied Anthropology. Terry is one of the country's leading authorities on the science behind folk remedies..
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