Fixing the Way We Pay for Health Care | 12/5/24

I begin today’s show by warning how Republicans are not showing an appetite for spending cuts both in budget reconciliation and the emergency disaster spending bill. The biggest cost to our budget and life, of course, is the broken healthcare system. I’m joined by family physician and medical school professor Dr. John Littell, one of the heroes of COVID, for a deep dive into the lack of trust between doctors and patients. Dr. Littell warns that alongside a lot of bad medical practice are still lifesaving protocols, and patients need to find doctors they can trust to sort out the good from the bad. For example, he believes that things like vaccines, Pap smears, and statins are being driven by medical industry politics, but on the other hand, colonoscopies are lifesaving. He recommends that the new HHS leadership change the incentive formulas in Medicare that incentivize hospital treatment over outpatient and discourage traditional family medicine practice. Without restoring the doctor-patient relationship, we will not restore the much-needed trust of the patient.

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