The U.S. Health Care System Is Terminally Broken

Topics: Health, U.S.

Program Release Date: September 28, 2017

This debate was presented live at Transform, the annual conference of the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation.

The United States spends more on health care than any other nation, but the system remains woefully inefficient. Consumers are fed up with soaring costs and poor outcomes, insurers take issue with market instability, and providers lament rising barriers to quality care. And while government is forced to contend with enormous financial strain, employers fear that rising health care costs will impact wages and sap their competitive advantage. Have the structural shortcomings of America’s fragmented system put us on the road to total system failure? Do we need to design tomorrow’s health care on a clean slate, or can innovations to the existing health care framework jolt the system back to life?

ARGUING YES:

• Shannon Brownlee: Visiting Scientist at Harvard School of Public Health

  Senior Vice President at the Lown Institute

• Robert Pearl: Former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group

ARGUING NO:

• Ezekiel J. Emanuel: Bioethicist; Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania

• David T. Feinberg: President & CEO of Geisinger

MODERATOR:

• John Donvan: Emmy award-winning journalist