Episode #186 Who Really Pays for Higher Healthcare Costs? with Zack Cooper, Associate Professor of Public Health and Economics, Yale University

Zack Cooper is a health economist whose work is focused on producing data-driven scholarship that can inform public policy. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Public Health and Associate Professor of Economics at Yale University in addition to being the Director of Health Policy at Yale’s Tobin Center for Economic Policy. Zack’s research has been published in leading economics and medical journals including the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the White House, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

My first reaction after reading Zack’s most recent article, “Who Pays for Rising Healthcare Prices?: Evidence from Hospital Mergers”, was – how is this information not all over the news??  Most people are aware of the untenable costs of healthcare but I doubt anyone is aware of what’s revealed in this most recent study.

Zack first points out that the biggest driver of rising healthcare costs is increasing hospital prices. But then he goes on to discuss that when hospital prices rise, it leads to higher insurance premiums for local employers. Employers then have to either reduce wages or lay off workers, and those most likely to be affected are those making the least. This conversation highlights the stark contrast between the healthcare experience of those earning well over $100,000 compared to the majority of working Americans. I suspect that most healthcare executives are insulated from the real-world impacts of high healthcare costs on working families. We must do better. And that starts with being fully educated on the topic, so please join us for this enlightening and critically important conversation.