The Pursuit of Health: a podcast on health policy for a free and modern society.

The Pursuit of Health: a podcast on health policy for a free and modern society.

by Center for Modern Health

Medicine Philosophy

Season 2

Capturing value in healthcare, with Andrew Schutzbank

Creating value in healthcare is the easy part, capturing it is hard. So argues Andrew Schutzbank, who explains how our current fee-for-service and value-based-care models fail to capture the value that providers create for patients. In this episode, Andrew and I get into what it means to create and capture value in healthcare, and what kinds of policies changes and new technologies on the horizon might help us capture more of the value created for patients. You can check out Andrew's substack Schutzblog here. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Fighting Hospital Consolidation, with Anthony DiGiorgio

Regulations heavily skew the American healthcare market in favor of big hospitals at the expense of independent doctors. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed modest rule changes to facility fees and the 340B drug program, which hospitals have previously used to consolidate healthcare markets. Anthony DiGiorgio joins us to explain these rule changes and how they will help to level the playing field for independent doctors. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Dislike Big Health Insurance? Then shrink their role!

Dealing with health insurance can be deeply frustrating, as John Oliver recently highlighted on Last Week Tonight by taking aim at UnitedHealthcare. While most people blame these systemic failures on the profit motive and look to the government for a solution, the real culprit is using insurance to pay for too much of our care. To regain control and truly protect us from financial catastrophe, we need to shrink the role of health insurance in everyday medicine. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Doctors shrugging off health insurance, with Josh Umbehr

Health insurance has constrained the imagination of how doctors and patients can interact. What if, for most of healthcare, doctors and patients shrug off health insurance and build something new? That's the idea behind Direct Primary Care, and in this episode of Healthcare Builders, Josh Umbehr explains how rejecting the comprehensive health insurance paradigm gives doctors and patients the freedom to disrupt and innovate in the healthcare market. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Medicare for All: a false alternative to the status quo

Medicare for All is presented as both a radical yet sensible alternative to the failing status quo of American healthcare. It isn't. In this episode, Drs. Colleen Smith and Reinier Schuur expose the myths about Medicare for All and point to the real lessons of healthcare from other developed nations, namely, cost-sharing for public programs and a truly private parallel healthcare market. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Medicare undercuts physician independence, with Anish Koka

Adjusted for inflation, Medicare has been paying physicians less every year since the implementation of the Physician Fee Schedule in 1992. As a result, independent physicians have either joined the better paid hospital systems or left medicine altogether. In this interview, Dr. Anish Koka offers a simple solution that does not require paying physicians more with taxpayer dollars, namely, to repeal the prohibition on private contracting under Medicare. Listen to learn more about how Medicare undercuts physician independence and how to restore it. Read Dr. Anish Koka's article on Medicare payment reform on his substack here. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Healthcare Builders, with Nick Vailas

In our new series on Healthcare Builders, Reinier Schuur interviews Nick Vailas about his wide-ranging career in healthcare from the private to the public sector and back again. Nick Vailas is a serial healthcare entrepreneur, setting up the first ambulatory surgical center in New Hampshire, and serving at the state's commissioner of Health and Human Services, after which he spent 8 years as the chair of the Certificate of Need board to dismantle it from the inside. Nick Vailas gives his insights on healthcare reform and lessons for the builders of healthcare. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

Bursting the Hospital Protectionist Bubble

Hospital lobbies defend protectionist policies—like Certificate of Need laws and ACA Section 6001—by arguing they need to cross-subsidize unprofitable services to survive. But does keeping competitors out actually justify a broken system? In this episode, Jared Rhoads and Reinier Schuur unpack the economics of cross-subsidization, why traditional hospitals view competition as a threat, and what it would take to build a genuinely open hospital market. Check out Jared Rhoads' article on cross-subsidization here. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

The 50-State Health Freedom Index

Much of healthcare in American is regulated at the state level. Because of this, there can be big differences between states in how free they are in healthcare. How free is healthcare in your state? The Center of Modern Health, in collaboration with the Knee Regulatory Center at the University of West Virginia, is proud to present a resource to answer just that question: The 50-State Health Freedom Index. In this episode, we explain how this index will empower state-level health policy analysts and legislators to move their state towards more freedom in healthcare. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

New York's plan to abolish private medicine

The New York Health Act (NYHA) is being sold as a 'public option' health policy to New Yorkers. But make no mistake, there is nothing optional about the NYHA. In this episode, Reinier Schuur and Colleen Smith explain how the NYHA would effectively prohibit the private practice of medicine in New York, stripping providers and patients of their freedom of choice in healthcare. Besides the NYHA's monetary cost, New Yorkers cannot afford to loose their freedom of choice. Enjoyed this episode? Then don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our show. To support our show, and the Center for Modern Health, you can make a tax deductible donation here.

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