I got the idea for this article when I was visiting Rice University last year. As I was leaving the campus, which is just outside the central business district of Houston, I noticed a group of glass skyscrapers about a mile away lighting up the evening sky. The scene looked like Dubai. I was looking at the Texas Medical Center, a nearly 1,300-acre, 280-building complex of hospitals and related medical facilities, of which MD Anderson is the lead brand name. Medicine had obviously become a huge business. In fact, of Houston’s top 10 employers, five are hospitals, including MD Anderson with 19,000 employees; three, led by ExxonMobil with 14,000 employees, are energy companies. How did that happen, I wondered. Where’s all that money coming from? And where is it going? I have spent the past seven months trying to find out by analyzing a variety of bills from hospitals like MD Anderson, doctors, drug companies and every other player in the American health care ecosystem.
Objective journalism is a dying (many say dead) art, a horrendous fact in today's real world. However, every once in awhile, an unbiased and quality article is written that brings hope of keeping unbiased reporting alive. In this excellent investigative Time Magazine special report, Steven Brill seeks out the answers for why healthcare in America is so fucking expensive. In it, he confirms suspicions and allegations that I and probably many others have had about healthcare, in that it's almost entirely controlled by insurance companies, who have their power legally confirmed and endorsed by our government, and that our healthcare system's #1 priority is profit, NOT the health and welfare of patients. And for those of you who 'voted' for Obamacare, Mr. Brill sums up that grotesque item nicely:
Put simply, with Obamacare we’ve changed the rules related to who pays for what, but we haven’t done much to change the prices we pay.
It's quite a long read, but, please, if it's the only thing you read today, read it ALL. Share this article with those you love, and especially with those who have not (yet) taken the red pill.
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