There is a fair amount of cost shifting in healthcare where the commercial insurers or those who pay a little bit more for services are used... Those dollars are used to subsidize the underpayment on the other side. It's really not an ideal system in any way, shape, or form. And there are, as I said, definitely ways that we could be doing it better.
Physician and author Vivian Lee talks about her book The Long Fix with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Lee argues that we can transform health care in the United States, though it may take a while. She argues that the current fee-for-service system incentivizes doctors to provide services rather than keep patients healthy and that these are not the same thing. Topics explored include innovations in Medicare and in technology that might change treatment incentives as well as the weird world of health care pricing.