The Hidden Costs of Healthcare

On November 15th, INET experts gathered in Washington, DC to discuss why financialization is driving higher healthcare costs, and how this dangerous trend must be addressed.

Moderated by Steve Clemons of The Hill, the discussion featured scholars Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt, William Lazonick, and Öner Tulum, who presented their research on stock buybacks, drug prices, patents, and private equity firms.

[davidroberts]

The rest of the world, the whole world except us, can afford Universal single-payer healthcare. We pay more than twice cost per capita while the rest of the world's life expectancy rises and ours declines. WHY CAN'T WE AFFORD MEDICARE FOR ALL? Now let the health insurance companies lie to us to explain.

[davidpayant]

Very informative on the methods financial firms make money while providing no social benefits. The panel is naïve in thinking congress is capable of addressing these issues. This is complicated stuff and the voters are not able to understand let alone vote for people who will regulate Wall Street. The US is on an inexorable trend downward and the middle class is in trouble. 🐝🐝

[Manu-lbcg]

If people like their health insurance so much, then why do they switch to Medicare the moment that they are eligible to? Spread the word. Health care is a human right. #Bernie2020

[masonainsworth]

This was an excellent and very disturbing portrayal of our for-profit healthcare system. It is a purposefully structured system that leads to ill-health and death as compared to the non-profit systems in other industrial nations. However, through the magic of "language" it is not murder. It is just an undesirable though profitable outcome.

[counterflow]

It is said by some ( experts that study these things) that medical mistakes are the third leading cause of death in the U.S.

[walterlewis]

Shocking revelation about the current fiscal state of USA....my goodness...what's happening?!?🧠🙏🥮🤑😂

[GETJUSTICEU]

@Ashfield: yours is an establishment Milton Friedman view of social healthcare/socialism.

The NHS is social healthcare in name only. When healthcare in the UK was first nationalised seeing your doctor was similar to seeing your barber. One turned up at the GP surgery waited ones turn (no appointments were made, ) and would be out usually within 20 minutes. There was a surplus of hospital beds, and the whole system provided healthcare for everyone when they needed it at short notice. I know this from first hand experience.

Thatcher de nationalised all of the UKs essential services in short thrift except the NHS. The Conservatives knew that privatising the NHS would be an act of suicide for the party, it would be gone like the NHS for ever.

However, any socialised industry is not to be tolerated in a "Financial Capitalist" (neo Feudalist) economy so the Thatcher regime realised privatisation of the NHS had to be done stealthily one piece at a time; first outsourcing, catering, lab testing, cleaning, maintenence etc. to private cartels. Selling the building stocks and renting them back. Hospital and clinic trusts, all charging the government (blank checks) to make extortionate profits out of tax payers. Gordon brown increased NHS founding by 100% and its productivity (service to the "end user" (patient care)) increased by 1%. So Where did other 99% of the £70billion handout go? £billions poured into private management consultancy firms that turbo charged privatising the NHS (this is where the ideas of renting building, trust funds etc that soak up much of the £billions of tax payers money goes EVERY YEAR, and inflated costs of private lab, drug supplies catering etc. etc. The NHS like the American scheme is one giganting pozi scheme to transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%. You know nothing about Financial ecomomics (neoliberalism) and consequently support the evil warmongering ideology because you are not equipped to see through the smoke and mirror propaganda that camaflages its preditory system of wealth extraction ie the trickle down effect in reverse.

The way they privatised our nationalised industries was by simply starving them of adequate funds so that they could not function effectively thus claiming that nationalisation is inefficient, wast full etc and does not work so that it needs to be made more efficient (privately owned/by wealthy guys with the money to buy them for profiteering) and too many guy's like you (also myself some years ago) are taken in by this propaganda pumped out by ignorant or corrupt politicians. Making an industry more efficient really means making it more profitable, getting more money for providing less service. Your belief of why socialism does not work is because it is constantly being strangled, and crushed (war, corruption, debt, regime change, assignation) by Western Financial Capitalism (FC). I'm not saying FC does not work because it most certainly does for the super rich 1% at the expense of ordinary people 99% especially half the world's population living in poverty including half the American people.

China does not have these problems any more inspite of Washington's plans to crush their economy (sanctions/seige warfare) to prove socialism (Industrial Capitalism) does not work when clearly it does for everyone not just the super rich.

"We lie, we cheat, we John Bolton (arch neo-con FC) Trump aide/advisor/diplomat.

"The primary purpose of business is maximising profits (maximising dividends/stock values) for its stock holders regardless of the social or environmental Milton Friedman the guru of Reagan/Thatcher FC. He was awarded a Nobel gong for this vile ideology.

" I believe the death (caused by Washington sanctions pre the NATO invasion) of 500, 000 Iraqi children was worth it. (to facilitate the plunder of Iraqi oil)". Madeleine Albright, arch neo-con FC, political scientist (sic), one-time Washington Secretary of State.

[abnerunintended]

Please INET don't ask him to host again 🙏🏿🙏🏿

[georgeinjapan]

The insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies can't "afford" it ...

[red-baitingswine]

Drug companies don't at all want to be competitive, or to innovate. They simply want to increase profits by any means necessary. They manipulate the results of (free to them) basic reasearch. We should allow e.g. Indian mfrs, who seem to be competent, to use our basic research results to offer real competition (which won't be easy, since corporations o w n and/or a r e our govt).

[postmanlondon]

Can they cough away from the microphone please?

[johnellington]

Rights to a Few. To Sustain Selfish Directives.

[marc-andreperron]

One question that you have to ask and prove, to help sustain and promote a single-payer system, is its' cost-efficiency compared to a two-tiered system, etc. I think the only way to have a sustainable healthcare system is to have a population that wants to support and pay for it (no free lunch), and elect politicians who will support it administratively.

[turninburninvernoniii]

Over 5, 000 views with only 155 likes is a bullshit ROI for INET. We owe these incredible folks more than this bullshit.

[Travie_Law]

An absolute silly and unnecessary point made by the moderator at the 41:00 mark about a woman making 19 million from price gouging pharmaceuticals. “Yeah but men in that price gouge make more” Pay inequality is bad but that’s not the point genius, it’s the price gouging.

[Name-jwsj]

I am not a fan of the host. He keeps interrupting both the economists and the questions by the people and then tells others to "hurry it up", are you kidding? Then his remark on 41:00 was totally irrelevant.

[Buckzoo]

The current Incentive system might have made miracle drugs such as Crisper possible (more than that, thanks basics research funding as well), but the heath care still one of rated the worse in the developed world.

[estitt]

Anyone else watching this and at @41:00 feel that the moderator showed his true colors, and that is, “I want to make sure Heather Bresch, daughter of Joe Manchin, CEO behind the epipen price gouging controversy, looks good here and is presented as a sympathetic figure.” Aka, “let’s not be too hard on her bc I want access to her in the future.” Pretty gross.

[mindovomatter]

Did you all like this host? If not why?

[SlackKeyPaddy]

Rose Many Bot has COVID and is coughing into the panels faces. WTF!