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December 5, 2024 102 mins

In this episode, I speak with economist Dale Steinreich about our dysfunctional health-care system (in the US), and about health insurance in particular.

What is wrong with health insurance? Why does it so often seem to operate against the interests of its consumers, rather than for their benefit? Does this represent some kind of failure of the free market? Or is something else at work here?

We go into the nature of health "insurance" in an interventionist marketplace, and the history of how we got here. This is an insightful episode, and you'll come away with a better understanding of why this industry is so dysfunctional.

Dale's original article on the topic is here (audio here). His more recent paper is here.

His review of John Goodman's "Priceless" is here.



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