Consumer Driven Healthcare: A 2 Hour Exchange Special (Part 1)

I was disappointed that more time was not spent on universal or single payer health insurance. I do not believe that consumers have enough medical knowledge to have a large impact on costs to the extent that you have reported it on your shows. A few references were made to the national system in Canada and other countries but then these were not explored further. Canada' system has high patient satisfaction, high quality, lower costs and they live as long if not longer than we do here in the US. There is nothing in our constitution or elsewhere that says health insurance has to be tied to employment and historically this has only been true since just after WWII.
High deductable policies sound good at first blush but will rarely work for workers who live pay check to paycheck or have chronic disease through no fault of their own. Yes, we all need to smoke less, eat better, exercise more and stop drinking to excess and health care cost would come down if we accomplished these goals. I have, however, rarely seen a patient make the decision to quit smoking soley on economic grounds such as a high deductible.
Your report was thoughtful and engaging but unfortunaley incomplete. I do hope you explore universal health insurance in a future series.