The Institute for Freedom & Community at St. Olaf College seeks to promote free inquiry and meaningful debate of important political and social issues. By exploring diverse ideas about politics, markets, and society, The Institute aims to challenge presuppositions, question easy answers, and foster constructive dialogue among those with differing values and contending points of view. Established in 2015, The Institute offers a distinctive opportunity to cultivate civil discourse within a liberal arts setting. See more at institute.stolaf.edu
This is the final event of the IFC’s spring 2018 series: “Freedom, Community, and Health Care,” featuring a conversation between Amitabh Chandra and Tyler Cowen, moderated by St. Olaf College Associate Professor of Economics Ashley Hodgson.
Amitabh Chandra is the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Public Policy and Director of Health Policy Research at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisors, and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Tyler Cowen is an economist, blogger, best-selling author, and professor of economics at George Mason University and at the Center for the Study of Public Choice. He is also the director of the Mercatus Center, a research center dedicated to bridging the gap between academic research and public policy problems by training students, conducting research of consequence, and persuasively communicating economic ideas to solve society’s most pressing problems and advance knowledge about how markets work to improve people’s lives.
The tech industry thinks it’s about to disrupt health care. Don’t count on it.
But the tech companies that have excelled at disrupting industries, from bookstores to taxis, have typically done it by improving and transforming the consumer experience. Efforts to upend health care in the same way face a major challenge: Most consumers engage with the system infrequently and, when they do, patient choice tends to be superseded by health insurance plans and doctors.
.. compared being a patient in the traditional American health-care system to going to a restaurant with a rich uncle who pays, while the waiter chooses the food.
.. The patient may get to pick the restaurant, but the rich uncle is the insurance company and the waiter is the doctor, who is motivated to keep bringing more entrees and expensive wine.
.. When you go out to dinner, you can be booking airfare — you go to Travelocity, you try to get a good deal. That hasn’t been there in medicine
.. when members are trying to make a decision. … They don’t say, ‘I have a question or issue — let me go to Anthem.com.’ ”
.. change will come from employers and health plans that alter how the system pays for care.
.. policy and benefit design and insurance drive more change in health care, more than anything. It’s not a consumer market in the same way