2020 is going to be a make or break year for health care. While the majority of candidates in the race for the Democratic nomination back private insurance, the front-runners are pushing for some version of single-payer, signaling that this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grasp hold of Medicare for All.
But insurance aside, what are some of the other problems with the current medical system in the U.S.? From the limits of personalized medicine to the racism inherent in medical school curricula, and from the dangerous relationship between academics and Big Pharma to the complications that come with diagnosing someone as “at risk,” today we are diving into our recent archive to give you a range of essays that offer different answers to that question.
Black people get sicker because of stereotypes taught in medical schools.
Atul Gawande helped popularize the idea that health care spending is high because we use too much medicine. He was wrong: it’s the prices, and who pays them.
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Relationships between academic institutions and biotechnology companies create conflicts of interest that undermine the goals of academic medicine and harm the public.
