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.
