Longread #276 -- Bitter Pill -- 3/18/13

Our health care system is seriously broken. Costs have been rising but without corresponding increases in the quality of care for most patients. Tens of millions of people are uninsured and receiving little to no care at all. While Obamacare attempts to address some of these challenges, even its most ardent supporters generally acknowledge that it doesn't go anywhere near far enough in addressing the fundamental problems of our health care system.

As with diagnosing a medical condition, determining what is wrong with our health care system requires looking at the symptoms and trying to identify their causes. In this detailed report, the author exposes an array of troubling practices in hospital administration that are driving up costs without helping to make us any healthier. It serves as an excellent starting point for discussions of how to revamp or reform the medical system.

Update -- 3/19: It has come to my attention that this article is now behind the Time Magazine subscriber paywall. I don't know any good way around it, but I had saved a copy to my Kindle before that. If I come across another full-text version, I will update here accordingly.

"Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us" by Steven Brill
Published in Time Magazine, March 4, 2013

Eric